Unofficial
by lithigia
Summary: Between the final battle and the coronation. Queen Anora gives Kallian and companions a hard time, not without reason. All ends as we know, officially. F/f. Dark, not for the faint of heart (warnings apply); some humor, bit of romance. W/Leliana, Alistair/Anora, Alistair/...? M for violence.
1. Aftermath

**Disclaimer: **The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me.

_The army is celebrating. The Blight is over, the Horde broke in the aftermath of the the Archdemon's fall, in the city of Denerim. The city itself is wrecked and ruined, but there are survivors, and more than half of Ferelden still stands untouched. _

_They brought her in the camp, wounded, but breathing – soldiers carrying their hero. Let them have their hero. She won't last long without the others._

_Oghren is already drunk. His favorite Warden lives and he forgot to ask about anybody else. _

_The Qunari guards the Warden's tent, together with the dog . The dog is just a dog, and the Qunari will be heading home soon. He won't get to tell his tale, but that is another matter. He did lead the defense of the gates in a most satisfactory manner, and the men respect him. He'll be taken care of later._

_Alistair is in Redcliffe. He wouldn't come to the battle. Poor soul, he is still sulking over the Landsmeet. One has to know exactly what to tell him. Wynne'd become an abomination. Leliana would have perished. He should be easy to handle. _

_Why did Loghain have to take the final blow? She had everything ready. She waited for them to come down, with only a couple of personal guards – what could there ever have been more natural than a good daughter coming to greet her father, the Hero of River Dane, Grey Warden and survivor of the Blight-ending battle, fading then in the background to allow him bathe in his glory? Inviting the Senior Enchanter and the Orlesian to join her, and then to follow to the tents, for food and rest? When they did come, finally, Redcliffe's men-at-arms carried not one Warden's body, but two. One of them was still alive – not her father's. _

_Still, she did what she was set to. Greeted the army, honored the passing of the Wardens, shed a tear surely to be noticed and remembered afterwards, and humbly withdrew from sight, like wishing to be left alone with her grief. When Wynne and Leliana finally got in the courtyard, she smiled comfortingly, and summoned them aside, which they did with grateful brows. The Orlesian did argue some about remaining at the Warden's side, but she reassuringly told her that the wounded would be in good hands, that at the time the soldiers needed their moment, and that she'd find her friend again at camp. Nobody thought anything of seeing them follow. With a bit of luck, they won't remember the mage and the bard descending from the roof at all. _

_The Antivan is missing, though._

_Anora frowns._

**Chapter One – Aftermath **

The army camp covered two small hills and the valley between. The Dalish to the left, with their hallas and aravels hidden by the nearby forest, the Magi with their tents set in a circle-shaped cluster guarded by a chosen handful of Templars, upper in the valley, the Redcliffe soldiers downhill to the right, and the dwarves, uphill on the right, with no tents whatsoever, simply gathered with their bedrolls around a huge fire, the ale pouring, while one of their not-so-gifted minstrels glorified fierce warriors and nugs alike in the same verse, no less, and the Legion of the Dead warriors boasted with hoarse voices and chosen words. One had brought down three genlocks and seven hurlokcs at once, another, two hurlocks and an emissary, and then another had gutted four genlocks and had been stomped by the Archdemon, what more could have been asked of him.

Oghren, who had actually spent more than a year fighting at the Warden's side, was naturally enjoying most of the warriors' attention. Half-drunk as he was, he seemed to find his words well enough as to keep the attention of his equally intoxicated listeners hooked as he told the story of a very angry Warden hacking and slashing through the Deep Roads all the way to Bownamar and taking the gates of the City of the Dead in one glorious charge. There was something askew in this recollection, but the shadowy silhouette that crept through and around the dwarven camp had never been to Bownamar, so he indulged in listening for a short while.

Further down the valley, in the First Enchanter's tent was a gathering of sorts, one that brought the most unlikely people together. While usually the magi camp was off-limits for any other than Templars and the magi themselves, it seemed that the issue at hand was of such weight as to cause an exception.

"I'm telling you, Irving, I saw her die!"

"I was there too, Eamon, dare I remind you."

"We cannot be sure of anything right now. I say we keep this until the morrow." Teagan's even tone brought this line of argument to a close, apparently.

"Senior Enchanter Wynne is nowhere to be found, my lords. Ser Landry and I have looked her up to this hour."

"Ser Cauthrien, this is no trifle. Would you be so kind to let the Queen know of this?"

The discussion, however, went on in the same heated manner, and no one left the First Enchanter's tent. Apparently, besides Revered Mother Perpetua, who was bound to cry "abomination" at every street corner, none of the others were to reach a fitting conclusion any time soon.

The eavesdropper moved further.

Most of the people in the camp were drawn close to the center, where the human fire was burning merrily, and grain-made, surface ale was pouring, on behalf of the Queen herself. While her person was nowhere in sight, the Queen's tent stood out, a generous structure woven in expensive colorful silks, merely steps away from the fidgeting crowd. Next to it stood another, a little less adorned and a tad smaller, that had Sten and Con the mabari as faithful guards. Even in the lack of knowledge, this was proof enough that Kallian was inside; which didn't make the task any easier.

"Good that tent isn't right in the middle of the camp, or anything" the shadow muttered to himself, as he donned a black cloak over a battered dalish armor, and poured just enough stale ale over himself to stink from distance. He then staggered around the tents, mingling among the merrily drinking elves, dwarves and humans with no apparent purpose, while steadily approaching the Warden's tent. When he finally reached his destination, he let himself fall spectacularly at the Sten's feet, revealing part of his face just quick enough to avoid being thrown aside straightaway.

"It's me. Shh." Zevran thrashed like making considerable efforts to get on his feet, while whispering fast. "I talk. You listen." The Qunari had turned his face, with the deepest loathing etched all over his brow, his eyes locked on some spot over the horizon. "Good. Now – I don't know what to make of it, but the Queen has taken Leliana and Wynne, put them in a wagon that took the north highway – I didn't follow. I'll get Kallian out. You sit here and keep the dog with you – until dawn. Then, you leave. Con will find us - her, yes? Now, act _naturally_."

Zevran crawled closer and grabbed at Sten's arm, spilling stale ale all over his plate in the fumbling process of straightening himself. With no visible effort in making it look genuine, the Qunari rose and heaved him hard in the next drunken soldier, which generated a bit of commotion as the man fell over noisily, mumbling and swearing under his breath.

Apparently, that one hadn't been simply passing by. He had a purpose, which he began to make clear after he kicked Zevran with his boot and spat in the dirt in front of the Sten's feet. He'd only wanted to see the "glorious" Warden – he said –what was wrong with that. The big one could surely understand – he'd heard that the she-elf was "so-o pretty" and he'd only wished to take one good look in her tent, the man added in a sweetened voice, matching his drunken, lecherous sneer.

That was by no means a way to talk to the Sten of the Beresaad - the man's sense had apparently gone down the gutter with the last piss. The Qunari had snared him by the collar and was veering him one foot up in the air, perhaps undecided upon punching him senseless or running him through, or, more likely, looking for the hardest spot of ground to smash him into. In the meantime, quite a handful of onlookers were gathering in front of the Warden's tent, some of which appeared to know the man.

"Get him, Bry!"one of them shouted mockingly.

"Right, get him." A roar of laughter followed.

The man called Bry was yet oblivious of his circumstance, it seemed.

"I've seen her in Fort Drakon – the Warden. Quite good looking, that, fighting like a cat, she was. Can't we – just – see – her, ser?

"Parshaara!"

Knocking the man senseless had perhaps been the kinder choice.

Zevran heard the Qunari shout and draw steel behind him while he quietly lost himself inside the Warden's tent, leaving the now steaming pot of a diversion in his companion's quite impressively built hands.

Kallian was lying face-up in the tent, covered in blood and striped of armor, with some furs carelessly thrown over her body. Not even Zevran's elven sight could measure the extent of her injuries in the dim light, as they had been quickly sealed by magic, but it was obvious that the deeper damage had been left untended, as if whoever had brought her there had decided to save their healing energy on a target more likely to survive. Being not one to abide in mindless musings over the fate of forgotten heroes, Zevran rummaged quickly through the Warden's belongings, resolved to secure some trifling, but otherwise useful items, and then strapped Kallian's body to his back. The frail shape of the elf Warden would inconspicuously wrap in the cloak, small as she was – Zevran could count on that, and on the fact that the burden wouldn't hinder his moves much. As he crawled out through the back of the tent, he kept an ear open to the noise of the full-fledged brawl that took place in the front. It appeared that it was soon to reach resolution, a little too soon for Zevran's taste, as the harsh voice of a woman obviously used to command the respect of armed men reached his ear.

"Hold your sword, ser."

"Make way, it's Ser Cauthrien" there was a whisper, and the knight's voice got through in an instant.

"This men give you trouble? I apologize on their behalf, but they are mine to restrain."

"As you please."

"You are to be flogged first in the morning with twelve lashes. Go, and if I see any of your sorry selves around the camp to-nite, I will make that double. Are you satisfied, ser?"

"Enough."

The Qunari had never been a man of many words, Zevran would give him that. Focused as he was on what was happening behind, he failed to notice that Kallian was regaining her senses, until, a few paces ahead, she started speaking in a muffled voice, not particularly articulate, like she hadn't been in full command of her tongue.

"Zev? Where's Leliana?"

The question was one that required extended explanations, and Zevran's inspiration, or lack thereof, made him noncommittally mumble something that could be anything from "see later" to "get better" or simply "bad weather". Kallian didn't seem to take notice, one way or another.

"Zev? We won. You know? We ended the Blight!..."

"I know, I know…"

"You know, Wynne struck a Stonefist in the Archdemon's shoulder, and I got the chance and jumped on its neck, at the base of the skull, ready to strike it just right. But then it swayed me down again and grabbed at me, Loghain was calling to get its attention and Leliana was shooting at its eyes like mad, and I got to shove my sword up in the roof of its mouth, and I twisted it just as it was locking its jaws. That's how I got my arm crushed."

"Beautiful, this is not a good time."

Zevran was making his way around the human tents, when he spotted three men wearing the Redcliffe coat of arms drinking and speaking loudly, with the careless bearing of people who had one too many. Itching to hear more of their talk, he crept closer, donning his hood on and over both his and Kallian's heads. She seemed curious herself, and she kept quiet.

"Not a man lost to our ranks."

"Yeah, but taking the dwarves up to Fort Drakon?"

"They are not as easily tainted as humans, or so word goes."

"Too much honor on their heads. Am I to tell my wife back home that I helped defending an Alienage?"

"As good a fight as any. And those city elves weren't half bad shots, either. "

"The dalish, I hear, held the gate. That was quite worth seeing, I bet."

"And, she called for the mages in the market district? The mages? Daft one, I'm telling you. Using mages in the open, like that."

"At least they burned some of the filth out. And the Templars say they didn't lose anyone, either."

"Well, how many of you were in Redcilffe that night when she fought with us? When we all thought we'd die and never see the light of dawn again? Not a one had fallen then, too."

The men shrugged. They hadn't been there. They had been sent to patrol the roads weeks earlier – and were among those who returned only to find their women and children slain, and their households empty. Surely, nobody had died that night – but for them that had been little comfort, seeing that rescue had come too late to really make a difference. The one who had spoken before went on, regardless.

"She'd stand ahead of us all, like a knight, fighting three rotten things at a time with those small daggers of hers… Remember her then?"

"Hey, that's Tomas!"Kallian mumbled from under Zevran's hood. "Tomas! Oy, Tomas!"

"Shh!"

"Oy! Who there?"

The men rose as one and were piercingly staring in the darkness that shrouded him.

"Over here, Tomas!"Kallian called again. Zevran froze in place. All he could think of was how to quietly put them out. He was an assassin, not a bard, and the state of exasperation he was in didn't help find a more peaceable choice.

"Do I know you? Show yourself."

This time, there was no way for the man to mistake the hooded figure from behind the tent for a shadow of the night. Kallian would be mad at this, and, in the state she was in, he didn't dare knock her out, either; Zevran's instincts screamed at the edge of his mind - kill, kill, kill... – rendering him unable to think of any other solution. At the end of his wits, he whispered scornfully in the hood:

"Pray tell, dear friend – if you were to secretly remove an injured companion from a dangerous situation which they were unaware of, and you were to be spotted by innocent by-standers whom you did not wish to slay, what would you do?"

"Misdirect them, of course!"

Of course. How hadn't he been able to see it before? How nice that Kallian could, while otherwise oblivious to the state of things. Zevran reached for his pack and retrieved a small shiny object that tingled his fingers with small flickers of electricity, sending pleasurable stings up his arm – hey, had the object just _whispered_ to him?

"Oww. Not good. Just hold it for me." an annoyed Kallian spoke in his shoulder. "Here. You open it, like this"- the undertone tune was now audible – "and you put the ends toghether"- small lightning sparkles were forming around the bright crystal, making it glow eerily – "and you set it in place." Zevran couldn't tell which was more enticing, watching the nimble fingers of Kallian's left hand at work, or the tingling and humming and glittering of the lure trap. "There. Let it go. Let go, Zev?"

Caught in the charms of the small shiny thing, he had barely noticed that, having received no answer to his call, Tomas was coming their way slowly, with the shortsword half drawn. Zevran thumbed the hilt of his dagger under the cloak. Much to his relief, though, the man's eyes turned from the shadow that hid their presence to the glittering shape in the grass.

"Ohh, pretty…" he mumbled as he reached for the thing.

"Whaddya found, Tomas?" the other two gathered closer to admire, drawn to the enthralling murmur that had grown more powerful now, as the man named Tomas had snapped the crystal in two, and was zooming the two parts in and out, fallen deep in fascination.

Zevran was pacing away slowly, like one walking on fresh eggs and trying not to break any, when Kallian spoke again.

"Zevran…?"

"If you don't shut up this moment, I may have to slay whoever we meet next. We are fleeing camp, if you haven't noticed."

"Oh! I haven't. But I'm coughing blood."

"Wonderful."

He got in the small camp in the woods later, and delivered his precious burden to the woman standing by the fire there. She took a quick look over Kallian's body.

"Head trauma, cracked skull; broken ribs, coughing blood, crushed arm. Do you happen to have found any of that mad woman's ashes upon her?"

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid not. I have found an overpowering lure, though."


	2. Companions

****Disclaimer: ****The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me.

**Chapter 2 - Companions**

It was late at night when Kallian first moved. Her head was wrapped in linen stripes reeking of health poultice, and her right arm was tightly laced to several wood splints to keep the bones in place. Every breath she took brought about jolts of dull pain, of the sort that half-healed ribs were due to cause. However used to pain and injury she'd become in the past year and a half, she'd also become quite accustomed to walk out of almost every battle with little or no damage at all, partly consequence to her swiftness, but more so owing to Wynne's spectacular healing skills that took no time to mend a broken bone or a gaping wound. One took quickly to the small comforts of life, it seemed. Kallian groaned and shifted to ease some of the pressure in her chest.

She could make little of her whereabouts, other than being laid on a bedroll a few paces away from the merry glittering of a small camp fire, somewhere in a clearing likely to belong within the hardwood forests on the banks of River Drakon. An untainted forest, at that, or that was what her senses were telling her – which meant she was on the northern bank. And, it seemed, Wynne was _not_ within the distance of a late night's stroll, seeing that someone had taken the time and the trouble to mend her wounds with wood splints and healing poultices. Kallian groaned again.

It was after a while that she heard a sudden brush of wings, and somebody fidgeted around the fire.

"So, what news?"

"They're on their way to Highever indeed. They passed by Amaranthine without even stopping for supplies. I sighted seven royal guards, and five or six more Templars joined them at the crossroads with the Northern Highway. Too many to tackle by oneself. They must be well beyond our reach, by now. Three, perhaps four days ahead of us, should we travel on foot."

Who was going to Highever? What? Why? Kallian braced herself to rise, fumbling with the fur covers that were her makeshift bed. She was weaker than she'd thought, and the pain sharper, and she faltered, almost falling off her feet. She finally managed to straighten herself and headed to the fire.

"Ah, belissima. Glad I am to see you awake."

A hand was stretched, and Kallian grasped at it, using its support fully as she sat by the fire.

"Zevran? Morrigan? I thought you left us in Redcliffe? Good to see you, though."

Morrigan sneered gloomily.

"Not so good, I'm afraid, given the state of things. Though I took my leave in Redcliffe, I followed you to Denerim in the shape of a bird. I was curious as to how this story would end, after all. And good it is that I did."

"Tell me, my friend, how much do you remember from last night?" Zevran asked.

Kallian rubbed her temple thoughtfully.

"Not much. I was so happy that everything was over, so eager to see Leliana, after… I think she's not anywhere close, though?" Her voice broke off slightly, and she paused for a moment to regain composure before she spoke again. "It was all eerie, like a dream – I suppose I didn't much expect it to make sense - I do remember you, Zev, saying we were running out of the camp. So – why don't you two just tell me what happened?"

"Well, as I said, I followed you in bird shape. I didn't quite close in until you had the Archdemon slain, 'twas not safe for me to do so. But, as soon as it fell, I did, and I saw you and Loghain being carried from atop Fort Drakon to the yard, where the soldiers gathered to salute you. Then I saw Anora, with a handful of her personal guards, taking Wynne and Leliana aside. I wanted to take my leave, but then I followed – thought I'd show myself for a glimpse, so that you'd know I'd been there. Better I didn't get the time to do so. As soon as they were out of the crowd's sight, a lone Templar appeared, and hit Wynne with a Holy Smite, without any ado or introduction. Leliana drew blade, but Anora showed her some papers, and Leliana let the guards take her without a fight. By then, Wynne'd recovered from the Smite, unnaturally fast, and _glowing,_ due to that spirit she's bound with, no doubt. The glowing on her was obvious enough for the Templar to see. Seeing that things didn't stand well at all, I thought that you too may be in grave danger, so I found Zevran at the gates and warned him of what I'd witnessed."

"Yes. So, I decided that when this kind of things happen it's better to be safe than sorry, as you people say. I turned to the shadows, and we went outside the gates to investigate. We saw a wagon surrounded by the Queen's men taking the Imperial Highway. Morrigan took a peek inside - and indeed there they were, bound and gagged, both. So, she went to the woods to find a spot for camp, and I came to rescue you, my friend. The rest is as you know it."

Kallian kept silent for a while, allowing the news to sink in. When she spoke, she probed the bits of information, mulling them over, like a sore tooth.

"So, Anora showed Leliana some papers?"

"Something from her past, no doubt."

"And Wynne, she got on her feet after the Smite, suddenly glowing?"

"There's no hiding her situation from the Templars now."

"No."

"Let me think" – Kallian turned to Zevran for answers this time – "nothing happened to Oghren and Sten, right?"

"I told Sten to leave the Queen's camp and join us with Con before your absence would be noticed. Oghren was beyond warning when I arrived last night."

"Sten is not here. If you think I'm wrong, pray, say so, but Anora had prepared before striking at Wynne and Leliana. Nothing was to happen to either Sten or Oghren, if my reckoning is right. Not in the open, not yet, not upfront. But Anora knows that I've gone missing for some time now. Something must have happened."

"You don't know that she'd have left them alone." Zevran scowled. "When I found you, dear Warden, no one had seen to your wounds, besides closing them with a spell or two. You were left in your tent if not to die, at least to remain crippled for the rest of your life."

"That'd be Wynne, not some royal healer. She'd sealed the wounds, but had no strength left to do more then. Leaving me in my tent to rot could have been accounted for, too, seeing that the Archdemon was this magical creature that no one could tell what harm could have done. Who would have dared say otherwise had the Queen herself declared me beyond healing?"

The taste of betrayal was bitter, more than any other before. Anora was her Queen. Anora had been her Queen, and she'd given up more than a lot to secure her well-being. She'd surrendered to Cauthrien and had gone willingly to Fort Drakon. She'd shown mercy to her father. She'd given her _Alistair_.

With Vaughan, as gruesome as all had been, things had been easy – he'd been easy to hate, easy to judge, easy to kill, like a rabid dog. At Ostagar, it hadn't been her fight. That, and, if she had been to choose between losing half an army or all of it, she knew that she would have had made the dreaded choice herself. When she'd fought Howe she'd done it for others – for the Queen, for a Bann's son, for a delirious Templar, for an Ostagar survivor, for a Grey brother she'd never met before. The closest to this she'd ever felt had been in the Alienage, when she'd found Tevinter slavers trading her people, but then her blood thirst had been quenched in slaying them all, in having run Howe through already, so when she had arrived finally in front of the Landsmeet she'd been fed up with all the manslaughter, ripe to eagerly embrace the first opportunity at mercy, to let Loghain live. She hadn't seen it then, how her forbearance had broken Alistair's heart, but it was becoming clear in the light of the recent events, she thought, as her own bitterness bottled up.

"You've been quiet for some time, Kallian. What is it you think we should do?" Morrigan's words broke her from her musings.

"This – this is all my doing. Had I not mistaken Anora for her father, had I not trusted her with the kingdom, none of this would have happened. This is my wrong to set straight."

"Ah, my friend, since when does a City Elf such as yourself favor misled honor over reason? We are here to help."

"The Blight is over. I can ask of you no more to put your lives at stake. Morrigan, you took your leave before the battle."

"There's more to me – and Mother – than I could possibly describe to you. I could not fight the Archdemon at your side without some sort of protection, not entirely unlike yourself – protection that was denied to me by your choice. That said, however, I have not called you my sister for naught. This fight of yours is my own, and I will see it through before going on my own path."

"As for me, I think we got through this before – I'm staying for the treasure. You didn't think that you could plunder Highever and keep everything to yourself, I hope?"

"Humph." Kalian offered a small smirk at Zevran's words. "So, there's no way I can talk you two out of this? Seeing that it is pure madness and we are most likely to fail?"

"I'm afraid not, my friend."

"Then, I suppose that we should head to Highever as soon as we can…"

Kallian's sentence remained unfinished, though, as all three of them froze in place, listening to the sounds of the forest. Something, or someone, was disturbing the night birds within a distance, it seemed, seeing that they were chirping and fidgeting more than usually. They conveyed wordlessly and rose from the fire in silence. Morrigan took the shape of a fox and lost herself among the trees. Zevran cloaked himself and crept behind the nearest shrub. Kallian put the fire out quietly, and stood still in the dark, with her good hand on the hilt of Fang, Adaia's dagger, which had never left Kallian's boot since she had received it. She waited, feeling the air.

Soon enough the disturbance had drawn close enough for Kallian to get a clear sense of what was coming. One, or maybe two bodies, big enough and not making use of stealth, judging by the fuss they'd caused with the night birds. Not a lone hunter, and definitely not a search party, either. Kallian was quick to reject unlikely prospects; the presence she felt held no menace. About the time she could fathom the what and the who exactly, the shrubs at the end of the clearing started to weaver with the commotion of the approaching beast.

"Con!" Kallian called cheerily, moments before finding herself on the flat of her back, tangled under the huge and very friendly paws of her own, and very sorely missed, war hound. Merry as the reunion was, the weight of one full-fledged mabari was a bit too much for her not-exactly-healed ribs and she found, among the tears of pain that it brought, that she could barely make the shape of the other visitor, who was now entering the small camp – one very big, human shape, with white braided hair that glittered in the dim light, and a huge sword strapped bare on his back. Seemingly, Con sensed some of his mistress's distress, as he tongued her cheek perceptively, twice.

"Down, boy."

She rose to welcome the Sten of the Beressad, along with Zevran and Morrigan; Con in toe. It felt like the old times were coming back, at least a little. But Sten had not brought good news.

He hadn't left in the morning, as it had been suggested by Zevran. He'd taken his time, and had listened to the soldiers' talk. By noon, the Queen's camp was steaming with the most unlikely rumors: Senior Enchanter Wynne had vanished in the plain sight of three fully trained Templars; the elven assassin had lost his trace among the Darkspawn at the gate; the Warden had traded the lives of four of her companions, including General Loghain, to the Archdemon for one hundred years of peace; the companions had turned against the Warden in the end on behest of the King, and had almost killed her, had it not been for General Loghain, who had run them through and had killed the Archdemon by himself. It had become such a hassle in the end that he'd decided to do something about it, and, by late afternoon he'd entered the Warden's tent with Con, who, as expected, wailed at the absence of his mistress. He'd gathered her torn armor and helmet in a somewhat convincing shape, stuffed with furs and whatnot, he'd hung her weapons on the armor's back as a warrior would carry them and placed all of it on the Elite Redcliffe shield. When he'd gotten out of the tent carrying this ensemble on his arms nobody dared stop him, and he hadn't been required to speak one word. The Queen had been in front of her tent, also. Only after he'd properly buried Master Wade's Superior Dragonscale Armor in the forest he'd given up the ruse and hurried pace, soon to notice that he'd been followed by some of the Queen's men – whom he'd run through.

"I brought you your sword, Kadan."

The hilt of the Topsider's Honour felt warm to Kallian's hand as she touched it, and it moved her a little, the fact that Sten had brought her the sword that had become her most natural extension since the Deep Roads. Odd that he'd be the one to retrieve it, still the most natural thing in the world.

They were even now. Debts were paid, the Blight was over, and the Sten was ready to take leave. He welcomed Kallian to Seheron whenever she pleased, and she thanked him, and promised to bring an entire box of cookies when she came.

"Travel safely, my friend."

She'd never called Sten a friend, before.

Something had just ended. Something else was about to begin.


	3. A Casual Encounter

****Disclaimer: ****The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me.

**Chapter 3 - A Casual Encounter**

"Leliana spoke to me, you know, about how eager you were to forfeit your life in the final battle – she was afraid for you, said you became reckless…"

"I had to end a Blight, Zevran!"

"Yes, yes. You're saying it as if the burden was yours alone. Not ours, not the Wardens', but yours alone. You used to trust us, to rely on us, to believe we were good for something – even me. When did this change, my friend?"

"It changed, Zev," Morrigan said scornfully, "when Good King Alistair threw a fit, chose to turn his back on everybody and forgot about the Blight in a whim. You know, when he decided to seize the throne of a country and forswear his duty only to have a man's head, let blood thirst get the best of him. Not to mention that this treachery here happened while the said king refused to lead his own army in battle and kept back at Redcliffe like a maiden in distress."

"Enough, Morrigan. We all know you never got along with Alistair. And, maybe you are right, but it was my bad judgment that put Anora in position to harm us, not Alistair's. That being said, since Leliana and Loghain decided behind my back that I should be the one Warden who outlived the Fifth Blight, the least I can do is try to protect you all to the best of my abilities."

"I, for one, never felt more sheltered then fighting at your side in my whole life, my dear Warden… Or, at your rear, to be more precise."

"Right." Kallian went on, ignorant of Zevran's quip. "Chances of success are slim whether we're one, or ten. I'd say that we split, and you two try to spread news of me wherever you go in the countryside – so that Anora's scouts won't know where I'm actually heading."

" 'Tis too perilous a plan. And you are unfit to travel on your own, even less so to fight your way inside dungeons full of guards. I say we all head to Highever, and face whatever we find there up front."

"Oh, I'm fit to travel. If I'm unfit to anything now, it is idly chatting around while Anora's men do Maker-knows-what to Wynne and Leliana."

"Well, we could always fly…"

"Fly?"

"Just saying. I don't suppose Morrigan will let us both sit on her back for such lengthy a time as to reach Highever, even if she could shift into something big enough to carry us."

"No. But Morrigan could, and would, shift you into a pitiful pool of limbs and entrails if you don't watch your tongue, elf. And stop speaking of me as if I weren't here."

It took them almost three weeks to reach Highever. All this time, Kallian kept getting snappier and telling everybody they should let her do this thing alone. The awkwardness of finding herself alive in the aftermath of the Denerim battle had rather deepened instead of wearing off. She should have been the one delivering the final blow. She had prepared for it. Not to the point of feeling ecstatic about it, like Riordan had – she'd seen it on his face, the exalted smile etched on his features for eternity as he'd lay crushed in the yard of Fort Drakon – she was not that of an accomplished Warden, but she had been ready and true. It would have been strange to come back to – living, actually – even if everything would have gone as expected; but then, she'd woken up to _this_. Not that she didn't understand Loghain's wish for redemption – she did, and quite well at that. Still, she couldn't help but think that Loghain would have been much more skilled at dealing with the aftermath; much more influent with the army; much more in power to protect her companions. Maybe it wouldn't have come to this, if Loghain had been the surviving Warden. He would have been able to stop Anora's scheme, and maybe prone to do so, she thought; although she couldn't tell that for sure about a man that she'd only known and fought with for the best part of the one month.

The fact that the bones in her right hand didn't seem to set properly added to her foul disposition. So, when they finally reached the outskirts of the city, the storm clouds that had gathered just above the walls made the dusky afternoon seem to bear an ill omen of sorts, and, although Kallian didn't give much heed to the thought, she couldn't help but shudder.

The city of Highever dominated the southern coast of the Waking Sea. On clear days, the view broadened, allowing one to see far into the sea, sometimes even over to Kirkwall. The high cliffs of the Coastland stood the cause for it, as well as for the irregular shape of the city wall that crawled up the steep slopes, of the narrow streets that took surprising turns and of the tall houses crammed in one another climbing up the rocky ground. The road to the docks wound down rather lengthy and slanted, and a hoist was set to take the heavier merchandise up to town. The castle towered above it all, with its ancient ashlar stones eaten by the salty winds that carved weird shapes in the formerly neat corners of its battlements.

It was indeed a desolate sight - the swarm of refugees crammed outside the walls, and a long line of wagons and carts stood patiently to be admitted to the city, with the occasional bouncing of hoofs or a small snort from mules and horses that looked as worn out as to collapse on spot, while their masters kept to themselves, wearing their ashen brows low in weariness. The place reeked of hopelessness and fear, and, while being a refugee who'd lost home and land and family was no small thing, so much dreariness lurked about that it gave Kallian the feeling something was amiss. There were no children among the refugees, no elder, and few women. The wounded and the sick were cared for in a small makeshift camp on the nearest plateau, but, oddly enough, the familiar sight of Chantry sisters bringing comfort to the dying was missing entirely from the landscape.

"We split." Kallian said in one breath. "We meet here by sundown. Let's see what we can find."

Neither Morrigan nor Zevran had anything to say against it. Morrigan shifted in the shape of a hawk, and she was gone. Zevran cloaked himself and turned to the shadows. Kallian scratched Con behind the ear with her good hand and whispered, absentmindedly.

"Come, let us mingle."

Mingling was quite the impossible task, Kallian soon found out; a scarce few of the refugees carried any weapons at all, and there were no elves in sight. Cloaked, with a dragonbone sword hung bare at her back and a mabari at her heel, she was bound to draw the attention of the few armed guards, who surrounded her and drew blade, demanding submission. While Con seemed bound to a path of violence, and bared his teeth as such, Kallian decided on settling things her way.

"Are you talking to me?"

"Are you stupid, knife-ears? Your sword. Now."

"It's a good sword, sers. I don't part with it lightly. Let me pass."

"You're outnumbered. Give it. It won't be of any use where we're taking you, anyway." The one who had spoken stepped forward, hand outstretched. Wrong move. Con gnarled. Kallian grew slightly annoyed.

"_I _can take down the four of you here before _you_ can call for help. Don't you have families to go to, to-nite?"

It was pointless. The chances that _this _would end with no bloodletting grew thinner by the moment. She wouldn't allow herself to be captured at the outskirts of Highever by a handful of clumsy city guards for the sake of peace keeping, though. Weary, she waited for their move, not willing to ruin the surprise of her fighting with a longsword in her left hand. Between the men's indecision and her own disenchantment, Kallian heard commotion behind, and a woman's voice spoke harshly:

"Stay your swords, sers, or face me."

The stranger's words bore consequence with the guards, out of shear fear, it seemed, as they lowered their blades straightaway, and Kallian turned around to face her rescuer. It was a tall, broad-shouldered woman clad in massive red steel armor that who had spoken, and, while the greatsword on her back was likely bigger than Kallian, and looked rather impressive, the dignified features and the hazel eyes betrayed a warm, though contained, disposition and a strikingly young age – she couldn't be more than one or two years older than herself, Kallian thought. Indeed, between herself and this warrior woman – girl – the guards were good as dead, and she afforded a small, private smirk.

"What are you gaping at" the woman said. "Be gone. Now."

As the guards did so to the last, Kallian unwound. A little small talk was in order.

"Why, thank you. That was close. I am Kallian" – of the Grey Wardens, she'd almost said. Too used to it meaning something, she chastised herself. This was not the time and place for display.

"No trouble. You may call me Clarice."

A small beastly whine didn't allow Kallian ignore the party member not yet introduced, and she made haste in setting things proper.

"This is Con."

Clarice stretched a hand for the mabari to smell.

"It is my pleasure." Then she added thoughtfully, not withdrawing the hand that Con seemed very absorbed in sniffing "You must come from afar. This is not a place friendly to elves, particularly armed ones, forgive my blunt words. I'd offer you shelter and food in my small camp, would you be so kind to accept it."

Like always, assessing the state of things didn't take Kallian long. It was highly unlikely that Anora had foreseen as much as to set a trap for whoever went searching for Leliana. And, if she had, she'd probably have chosen somebody – well – more suited than this young warrior with white hair and guileless guise. On the other hand, the enemy of the enemy was a friend, and this woman seemed to be known and feared by the guards. At the very least, Kallian would get a better grip of what was going on in Highever. At the very best, she would find allies, or even a way _in. _She would do this alone, though, and try not to disclose Zev and Morrigan; if need be, they would trace her easily when she wouldn't show at sundown, and they were both skilled enough not to get caught.

"I would be in your debt."

As they paced away from the crowd, Clarice started talking. It had been not long before the battle at Ostagar that Rendon Howe had slaughtered the Couslands and took over the Highever castle. Her family died in the attack, but Clarice herself had taken a blow to the head and had awakened in a pile of dead bodies in the moat; she'd managed to the woods somehow. She had been rescued and mended by some poachers. Since then, she'd built a little company, and they'd entered the city several times; she'd given the city guards as hard a time as she'd been able. It went without saying that she'd been seeking revenge – but there was more to it. Levies had been collected three times over. Strange things were happening within the city walls. Refugees were going in never to be seen again. The able-bodied were conscripted in the army on the spot. The Alienage had been transformed into a giant forge. No elf was to get out of there, and no human was allowed to get in.

"You say you have been inside?"

"Not myself. My people did." Clarice paused. "Well. Enough of myself and our trouble here. What about you? Where do you hail from?"

"Denerim."

"Have you any news of the Blight? Last I heard the Horde was heading towards Redcliffe, I remember. I wonder how much before it reaches Highever."

"Why, I do have news. Didn't word travel faster than my own two feet?"

"If it did, it went up there." Clarice's stretched hand pointed towards the castle. "Nothing was heard outside, for sure."

"I wonder why, exactly..." Kallian muttered under breath. "Well – then, I will talk for your ears only. Do what you please with the news."

"Pray tell."

"The Horde went to Denerim instead of Redcliffe, as it was expected. It took the city by surprise and they got in. We caught up with them three days after. Denerim was quite damaged already. But, good news is – the Archdemon has been slain. Loghain – teyrn Loghain – gave the final blow and perished in felling it".

"Loghain? You knew the traitor?" the hesitation had caught with Clarice, and she was scowling.

"I fought with Loghain in Denerim, yes." Kallian knew better than to deny the obvious, and she would only lie when necessary. For the time being, some harmless truth could be said – she would worry later with making her stories stick. "I don't know about him being a traitor – I'd rather put my money on Howe – but he was the kind of warrior that inspires respect. That, I felt, and I won't speak ill of him, seeing that I myself witnessed his dying on top of Fort Drakon. More so, since he can do no more harm, as it were."

"Right you are. Instead of rejoicing over the fall of the Archdemon I was scolding you for fighting along a great hero. I apologize, I've forgotten myself." The words spoke of composure, but the ever-frowning brow of the warrior read of anything but. Kallian became slightly cautious.

"No harm done. Maker knows, heroes are hardly what they seem. However, you surely can understand that, though I won't praise him, I cannot but acknowledge the valor of a man to whom I am indebted with my life."

The suspicion in Clarice's eyes lessened but a little.

"That, I can understand."

They arrived soon after. In a clearing no larger than forty paces several tents were crammed, hosting, most likely, about fifty souls. Clarice must have had trusted her people endlessly, to allow the camp to be set like that – there was no clear view, no telling who would enter or emerge from any of the tents, as they were laid chaotically on several rows in depth. One deer and two boars were simmering whole on the spits and vegetables were thrown straight on the embers. Some warriors were out and about, busying themselves with dinner, while others drank ale or played a checkers game. On the whole, it looked more like a merry gathering of people gone to the woods for a fortnight to host a hunting party, rather than a settlement.

Con the mabari found no difficulty to mingle. He was already making puppy-eyes to the next man holding a bowl of stew, which brought smiles both on the Warden's and Clarice's lips.

"Con, here. Sit with me." Kallian scratched the dog's ears, playfully.

"I had a mabari myself. She perished in the attack."

"I'm sorry to hear."

"Well. What is past is past. Come. Let's get you two something to eat."

It was later that evening that the questions started pouring. After a bowl of stew and a dish of rare boar chops with roasted parsnip the second mug of ale went down slow. Wits were dimming; tongues were loosening; some had already gone to rest, and those who still abided by the fire had gathered in one circle, sharing the same stories and recollections of feats of arms. They wanted to know about her, and Kallian did her best to say as little as she could, without leaving the impression she was keeping anything from them. Clarice wanted to know why she had come to Highever, and Kallian said the first thing that came to mind.

"My late husband hailed from the Highever Alienage. I'd come to bring the news to the family, if I could trace them. I doubt that anyone found the time, all this year and a half since he is gone."

"What was his name?" one warrior asked.

"Nelaros. He died defending me."

"We honor you, Nelaros." The voices of a dozen rose, and a dozen cups were held forth.

Kallian felt a little pang of guilt – in the little corner of the heart where she was still a shem-hating elvhan she felt a surge of satisfaction, seeing that she was drinking with this bunch of shems in honor of her dead betrothed, as if he were a hero and a brave man, who'd died for family and kin – which was the honest truth, actually. But it was not a fair thing that she used the memory of Nelaros for her own purpose. Her own salute was a mere whisper.

"Forgive me, Nelaros. You were a brave man."

All of them took a sip in silence. Kallian found she was ready for a third mug of ale. The man that had spoken before broke the silence, loudly.

"I know what we need. We need a bit of music. Shall we call the bard?"

A roar of laughter followed.

"Yes, call the bard. Bring the bard forth!"

One armored woman pushed forth the bard - the prisoner, judging by the irons that cuffed her wrists and ankles. She wore a sack cloth dress, and had a bloodied blindfold on. The view was not one Kallian could take easily. She rose from the log she had sat upon in haste.

"I thank you all for your warm welcome, but I must take my leave, now."

"Kallian?" the blind woman called.

"Hold it right there." Several swords were drawn at once, all pointed to the Warden's chest.

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><p>AN: This was not in the original scheme – I found inspiration in What Ithacas Means' "Silence, Water, Struggle, Hope" for bringing Kallian and Cousland together (it's Clarice for me, like in "Silence of the Lambs" - well). Anyway, the seed was planted, but then it grew quite unexpectedly and a bit dark. It served my purpose well, as I was looking for a solution of <em>not<em> making Anora the only and ultimate villain. That being said, I hope you enjoyed the story so far, and I solemnly swear that i'm up to no good.

Thank you for the kind reviews, everybody :)


	4. A Pouch of Gold

******Disclaimer: ******The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me.

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><p><strong>Chapter 4 –<strong> **A Pouch of Gold**

"I take it that you know each other" Clarice stated, slowly mulling the words over. "Care to tell us again who you are?"

This was not the first time in her life when Kallian wondered whether Fen'Harel the Dread Wolf was one and the same with the shemlen Maker, or the Maker had simply been Fen'Harel's unacknowledged offspring that had inherited some unbecoming features from his great-great-great-great-grandfather. One might have thought that the God of tricks favored the trickster, but then again, who was to say that tricking the trickster into thinking they could trick fate wouldn't be an exquisite entertainment for a treacherous god? She viciously measured each and every warrior that had a sword pointed at her. They were too many to fight them, surely, but blood was burning in her veins and she would gladly have pursued, had she found a way to win this fight. They had captured Leliana. They were keeping her in irons. Judging by the amount of blood that soaked that Maker-cursed covering, they had blinded her, not Anora's men. Why? What was it to them? Could it be that Anora had sent her prisoner to this camp of petty poachers, instead of the Highever garrison? Quite unlikely. They must have caught up with the wagon. Or, more likely, Leliana had made her escape, only to run into this barbaric merry band. If that was the truth, it didn't bode well. Slim chance she could get Leliana – or herself – out of the place in one piece. Or, with minimum loss of limbs, she thought dryly.

"I am Kallian of the Grey Wardens" she said slowly, mirroring Clarice's tone. The time for games had passed.

"Nelaros?" Clarice certainly did abide her time. Kallian was happy to oblige. As long as they talked, they didn't fight – and that was a good thing, was it not?

"Died on our wedding day, defending my honor from the human noble who was trying to exercise his right of first night."

"Have you ever met Rendon Howe?"

"I met him once, at Loghain's side. The second time I met him it was in battle, and he died at my hand."

"What of general Loghain?"

"There was a Landsmeet that you may have heard of, where the Wardens demanded that they be cleared of the accusation of treason, and that Loghain step down from the self-assigned position of Regent. They also demanded that Theirin blood be restored to their rightful rule, in the person of Alistair, the son of Maric. Loghain refused to step down as requested by the Landsmeet and was challenged to a test of arms, which he lost. For the reason of being a seasoned warrior and an accomplished general he was conscripted into the Grey Wardens. We fought together in Denerim, and he fell the Archdemon – but that you already know"

The rumor around, though, shown that the others didn't – not that it came as a surprise.

"It was you who bested Loghain in the Landsmeet." Clarice muttered.

"Yes."

That gave her a little pause, but the questioning begun anew as mercilessly.

"Queen Anora?"

"We stroke a deal before the Landsmeet – that she should retain her position and privileges by marring Alistair. We both felt this alliance was the most solid outcome that one could hope from the Landsmeet – one that would quench the civil war and allow Ferelden to fight the Blight. Apparently, she sought no more the presence of the Wardens after the battle of Denerim, seeing that she betrayed me and my companions, one of which you hold right there."

"Warden. Word of your deeds reached us here. If I have your word that you leave never to return to this land, I will let you go with your life. But your companion remains here."

Right. What had she expected? Shems, it seemed, had taken to the habit of sending her off empty-handed with the air that they were actually offering a bargain. Was there something etched to her forehead that bade them do so, Kallian wondered.

"I'm sorry, but leaving with my life is not what I came here for. She is," Kallian pointed at Leliana, "and I'm not going anywhere without her."

Clarice seemed genuinely unhappy at the answer.

"That, I understand." She went on, carefully weighing every word, as if they tore through her flesh. "You, Warden, must also understand that I cannot let her go. The reasons are mine own. All I can offer you is this: you and I take weapons and fight to the death – if, and only if, you give me here and now your word that, would you best me, you will lead my men and free my city from the evil that enslaves it. Then, you take your companion and go."

Right. More demands. To think she'd really liked this Clarice only hours ago. Kallian was definitely losing her touch with people.

"How can I trust your word, when you acted all but honorably with your prisoner? Was she not whole when delivered to you?"

"She was whole."

"Then you harmed me. I demand satisfaction."

Kallian's caramel eyes dug themselves in the hazel ones. Where before had been lenience and understanding, now only pain and determination remained. Kallian couldn't bring herself to try and fathom this; her own pain and anger demanded – ahh, poor Ser Landry, it had been him who had taught Kallian the meaning of the word, at the tip of his sword – satisfaction. Her father would have washed her mouth with lye on hearing her utter words as grand as this one, but she was far away from home. Maybe, she had a thing for greatness – the last time she'd entered the Alienage she had worn Evon the Great's Mail, whoever Evon had been, most likely a stub of a man, since his mail had fit Kallian perfectly – but satisfaction was a word that people like Clarice understood; and, honestly, how was she supposed to say to someone "I want your head on a pike and your bowels in the dirt" without sounding gruesomely uncivil? In the view of the battle to come, Kallian's head had become particularly light; but it seemed she wasn't losing her touch after all - truly, the word 'satisfaction' seemed to steer something in Clarice.

"I, Clarice Cousland, daughter of Bryce Cousland teyrn of Highever, and last of my line, I will grant you your satisfaction." she stated darkly, drawing her impressive sword.

Kalian unwound her cloak, revealing her crippled right arm for the first time. She quietly ordered Con to sit. Then she balanced her sword in her left hand, probing it, getting accustomed to its weight. Clarice Cousland heir of the teyrnir of Highever let out a war cry that could make the stones crack.

"Right. That was supposed to make me fall on my back in awe." Kallian was still probing and waiting. She had all the time in the world.

The first blow was meant to cleave her right in two, but she was no longer there when it fell. She took a duel stance but didn't strike back just yet – without a breach in the warrior's defense, it would have been a waste. She danced away and around, waiting for the second blow to get on its course. Only then she struck at the exposed right flank. Step, stab, back, dodge. She drew little blood.

All it took was a glimpse to Clarice's face to make Kallian cringe. She wasn't easily scared, not by any thing _natural_ – but this, the overpowering fear that froze the marrow in her very bones, reminded Kallian of staring in the hollering mouth of a shriek. Not that Clarice was less silent than death itself. Not that her eyes had changed color, or that she'd grown an extra nose. But something was there, in that _face_.

Not even the hard blow of Clarice's pommel got Kallian out of the abased state she'd fell into; she staggered backwards slightly, without falling, and she stood there, unable to break the stare, her arm failing her, unable to raise blade. What did, though, bring her back, was Leliana's call from the side.

"Kallian! She is a reaver!"

That made sense. And, while understanding broke fear, taunting was a good way to demean it.

"Ah, reaver? The lady is a _reaver_? So, that is your well-guarded secret that you hope to keep from anyone?" Kallian could well see she'd struck a nerve, so she continued with the taunting while evading yet another mighty blow. "That is why you pull eyes of people out, the eyes of good people, of my loved ones and friends?" The swords clashed with lightning. "That's why no one can leave here once they know?" Pinpoint strike. "So that no one outside this camp can learn of what you are? Not while you're _alive_?" Kick below the belt.

Clarice bent over as her foot found its target. This was the one chance to make this final, Kallian thought. She plucked Fang form her boot with her right hand and darted forward with the punisher's fury. She delivered four blows in a row that went through and below the warrior's plate, and, while the bones in her right hand cracked open again, so did Clarice's armor, and she fell on her back in a roar of steel, tangled in her own sword.

Then, the real nightmare begun.

Clarice's men, who had stood their side before, charged at Kallian from the rear, bringing her to her knees. She spat blood, as, clearly, at least one sword had pierced much more than armor, and Kallian got ready to receive a final blow. She found herself wrapped up in a force field instead – Morrigan must have been nearby. Clarice had been revived by someone, judging by the glittering blue light that had engulfed her body a moment before, and she was now staggering back to her feet only to be pushed back by the icing power of a blizzard. Leliana had begun to hum a small, captivating tune that stunned full-fledged warriors on spot, keeping Clarice's men within the tempest that Morrinag had added in for good measure. It was a massacre. Kallian got back to her feet, slowly regaining her strength. People begun to fall from exhaustion, and the place got filled with crooked bodies horribly maimed by huge frostbite wounds and lightning burns.

Clarice seemed to thrive in the mayhem. The storm and frost were burning and deforming her face, scorching skin that seemed to grow anew on the spot. She stood her ground, seemingly in the center of a reddish whirl of energy that drew from the corpses of her fallen companions, leaving them mere husks. It was a terrible sight to behold, that of a face torn and mending at the same time.

Then, the world around Kallian shattered. Somehow, Morrigan had exploded the force field to the outside, sweeping everybody still alive off their feet – except Clarice, of course, who was, by all accounts, indomitable. Not the same could be said about her mind, it seemed, as she regarded the battlefield with a miserable air that only matched the grim sight. She oozed an aura of pain so terrible that Kallian herself buried her head in her hands, filled with the hollowness of despair, as memories of past battles came back to her in vivid images, breaking her will. In a corner of her mind she heard Leliana scream curtly, and the finality of it got her back to the reality at hand.

"Call off your men, Clarice, or we'll all die in this Maker-forsaken hole!" she called, out of despair than of anything else. She didn't expect it to happen, really.

"Halt!"

There was a tremor in the air that came with the command. The storm faded away and died, and a mage emerged from the back of the tents tossing healing spells at those alive. Clarice had crumbled in a heap of red steel and silverite, looking small, but the reddish glow about her hadn't ceased, as the flesh and skin on her face and hands were knitting of their own accord.

"Stop that. It's your men you're feeding on."Kallian said with disgust.

"I know – can't" Clarice panted, seemingly appalled herself.

The mage had apparently taken mercy of her state, as he closed the remaining wounds with a flicker of the hand, and the glowing ceased.

Kallian didn't dare lower her guard just yet. But Leliana had cried with despair earlier, and now she was nowhere in sight. The itching need to go to her was growing, and shadowing everything else.

"Go see to your wounded," Clarice said. "I won't fight you anymore. Anders?"

"Yes, can I heal her now?" the mage was eager to help. It seemed he'd offered his services earlier. Kallian narrowed her eyes, but she chose to say nothing as she headed to the place where Leliana's body lay limp. She was still breathing, though barely, and she seemed unharmed, except for the cloth wrapped around her eyes. The mage named Anders kneeled beside her and started his incantations. He raised soon enough, though, with a somewhat puzzled brow.

"I can't figure it. It seems there is nothing wrong with her – except the obvious, of course, but I can't do much about that, now. It's too late. I could only knit the wounds."

Kallian had watched the mage's work carefully. She eyed him wearily and knelt at Leliana's side, herself. She touched her cheek gently and then removed the blindfold with caring moves. The view was dismal –empty sockets, where those clear blue orbs used to be – the beauty of her lover marred forever. She stroke Leliana's cheek once more, then she stood up, not willing to let her anger boil over again. There had been enough bloodshed for one evening.

"So you don't know what has happened to her."

"I'm sorry, Warden." The mage shook his head and reached for her right hand. "If I may…"

Kallian pulled her arm grudgingly, but blue light had already seared through her forearm, and she felt the bones set in place with a sharp pain. She sighed.

"You shouldn't have."

No one else had said a word. When she turned, she saw both Morrigan and Zevran standing there. She had no idea when they had come in the clearing.

"Let's go" she whispered to them, afraid that her voice would sound hoarse if she tried to speak aloud.

"One word, Warden."

No. She couldn't bear to hear another word from a – creature – warrior – thing so cruel and haughty as this Clarice Cousland. Well. Maybe she had a question.

"What did you _do_ to turn like this?"

"I did – nothing. It is how I woke up, in the moat. Reaver, you call it? I woke up like this, among the dead; my hair had whitened overnight. I swear to you, I've done nothing of my will to become a one."

The words rang true, Kallian could see – but she could give Clarice little comfort – or, rather, none. Morrigan took the mercy to answer.

"'Tis more than blood magic that which dark spirits teach. A moment of weakness from your part may have caught their attention. These things can happen; a power such as yours is sought by many. You must know, though, that it will consume you, lest you struggle to retain your human understanding. You may want to keep your blood lust checked, for one."

"Thank you." Clarice bowed her head, then she turned back to Kallian. She had to speak.

"Warden. I have met Duncan of the Grey Wardens the night Highever was attacked. He dragged me out of the castle against my will. He made use of The Right of Conscription, as I was more prone to meet my end with my family than flee. I ran back into the city to fight, knowing that he wouldn't follow. The rest is as I've told you."

Kallian didn't know what to make of this.

"What do you wish of me?"

"I have a conscription claim on my head. I was asking you for the time to set my affairs here proper. Then, I'll be willing to abide by it."

"I never heard Duncan say a word of it. As for my part, I doubt I will soon have the desire to fight alongside you. Consider yourself free." Kallian couldn't have sounded more bitter, and Clarice flinched.

"If there is anything that you would ask of me in compensation, let me know."

"I might just ask something of you, sometime." Feeling a little guilty towards the Wardens for denying such a promising recruit, Kallian was trying to get over her bad blood and not refuse. "There is also something that you could do for me now, if you will. Take this pouch of gold to Nelaros' kin."


	5. First, There Was the Bard

_******Disclaimer: ******The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><em>He stayed back. He foreswore his duty as a Warden.<em>

_They married in a hurry, Anora wanted it so that the will of the Landsmeet be carried on immediately, before the great battle. Should one of them perish, it would still stand. Correction, not the Landsmeet's, but the Warden's will._

"_Guard the castle" they told him. He went down the village and helped them build defenses, and convinced them somehow, in between the scuffles with stray darkspawn, that it had been a sensible decision that he stayed back, the Warden King, the last line of defense. Anora? They didn't ask. But he could see it in their eyes, all through the month, that they thought her braver than himself. More fit to rule. Well, so be it,__he can't care less._

_They all came back, with victory, but with grim shades over their faces. All, but the Warden. At first, he thought she'd stayed in Denerim, with the City Guard; what need was there, after all, to come to Redcliffe and see the old friend that one betrayed the trust of, when the capital was burning? It couldn't burn well without her, obviously. But no, that wasn't it. Eamon took him aside in his study the other day and told him the whole story. The Orlesian bard had given herself away in the end, in slaying the Warden just before she could give the final blow – so Loghain had done it in her stead. He'd perished of a burst of magic unknown in doing so. This, also, could have an explanation. Both Irving and himself had witnessed Senior Enchanter Wynne die and rise again during the battle; that spoke of one thing only – abomination. It made sense. The old mage had always felt strange to his Templar senses. This was only the conclusion. But, Leliana? So upright, compassionate, his only love? She had deceived him too, in having chosen the other Warden. It served Kallian well, after the betrayal he had to endure at her hand. Somewhat, a form of justice. Ah, and the Qunari had stolen her body from the camp._

_Anora has just returned from the village. She gives the reins of her bay horse to a stable boy, and throws a reassuring smile his way. She approves of what he's done down there. It warms him up inside, and he gives her a quick wave of the hand, without much thinking. It is the first time he looks at her and it doesn't spell resentment and deceit. This marriage may turn to be a good thing, after all._

**Chapter 5** – **First, There Was the Bard**

The events in the young Cousland's camp left Kallian with pursed lips and a knitted brow. As they gathered their gear, Morrigan, who seemed to take to Clarice a bit more than expected, pointed at something that none of them had had the time to notice yet – the sky above Hightever was red with a shimmering light.

"The city is burning with revolt. Zevran and I spread the news of the Archdemon's fall. If you want to take Highever, now is the time."

Then they left, Kallian arguing with Zevran on who was better suited to carry Leliana's limp body. While Zevran may have been steadier on his feet, as he hadn't seen battle that night, Kallian had always been stronger; she was also too attached not to be possessive, and Zevran let her have her way in the end. The fact that the bard hadn't regained consciousness of yet had also an explanation – Morrigan admitted that she'd hit her with a sleeping spell right before Clarice had unleashed her aura of pain; she'd only meant to keep Leliana out of the sword's range, butthis kind of thingcould always rebound; all that one could do on such occasion was to wait for the aftereffect to wear off by itself.

They were all willing to put as a sound distance as possible between them and the city, so the break of dawn caught up with them before they finally stopped and collapsed fully dressed on the grass near a small stream, with their cloaks laid for bedrolls and Con only faithful guard. Right before falling asleep, Morrigan muttered some protective spells that sounded terribly lacking to Kallian's ears – although that may have well been due to the fact that she was already dozing while the witch did her part.

Zevran woke up all of a suddenwhen a most unwelcome boot kicked him in the ribs. Half asleep, he jerked the offending foot hard to the ground and trampled the intruder, seizing their shoulders and freeing his dagger, right before being thrown on the side with a knee in the loin, while nimble fingers grabbed his wrist and almost cracked it, making him groan and let go of the weapon. The intruder rolled away, panting, and, as recognition dawned on him, Zevran spoke at the same time as the other

"Oh! Sorry!"

"Sorry, Zev!"

"As deadly as ever, are we? Happy to see that, Sister." Zevran chuckled.

"Oh, Zev!..." Leliana – as she had been the unwilling intruder – buried her face in her hands.

"Come now." Zevran wrapped his arms around the shaking shoulders of his favorite bard. "You'll be fine." he said as she fiercely returned the hug.

Since Leliana was human, and quite tall, too, Zevran found himself in a position that allowed for more than friendly comfort, and Zevran decided to lighten the mood in his own special way.

"You don't know how happy I am that we found you alive," he said truthfully, and then adding in a snickering voice muffled by Leliana's doublet,"- or, how happy I am to find myself so deeply engulfed in your exquisite bosom."

Unlike other times, Leliana didn't quip back. She burst into laughter and pulled him closer.

"You certainly have a way of making a girl feel at ease, ser Assasin. I missed you too."

"Come, let me show you around."

The clearing they had slept in was maybe ten paces wide and twice as long. It could host three, four tents at the most. Upstream, Morrigan was still asleep, in the shape of a bear, and Kallian lay snugly wrapped in her cloak, shaded by the trees on the left, quite near from the spot where Zevran had been resting. During early day, that place had been warmed by the gentle morning sun, but it was getting late by the moment, and it was getting colder.

"We shouldn't wake her, she carried you all night," Zevran said, keeping his voice low.

Leliana wanted to go downstream to freshen up. Zevran left her to herself, under the careful supervision of a very possessive mabari hound, who would be more than happy to serve as guide and guardian to somebody that held a whole bag of double-baked crunches, more so since that somebody was more than likely to leave the said crunches unguarded while they bathed themselves. Or, that was the way that Zevran put it, with the full knowledge of the fact that, had himself been a mabari, he wouldn't overlook the tiny bits of details that came with the task. Con wiggled his stub of a tail high and paced forth, with Leliana's hand on his back.

By that time Morrigan had gotten up and was stretching her bear bones in the sunlight. She roared once to clear her throat and she shifted back into human form, her bun still ruffled and her cheeks puffed with sleep. She shrugged off the stray leaves in her robes.

"Our bard has awakened, I take it?"

"Yes. She went downstream with Con."

"I wonder – have you noticed anything astray about her?"

"What? Other than being blind, you mean?"

"Yes, other than that. The Veil was thin around Highever. You saw what happened to that poor noblewoman."

"No, I haven't noticed anything else. And she is taking _that_ quite well, if you ask me. I certainly wouldn't be able to laugh, if such a thing happened to me."

"Well, that only stands to prove that you're vainer even than a _bard_," Morrigan sneered. "So, what shall we have for dinner – hare, or venison?"

"Going hunting?"

"I'd rather have venison, but that's just me" Morrigan turned swiftly on her heels, shifted into a white, furry, lean wolf with bright yellow eyes and strode off.

It was late at night when Kallian woke. Although springtime had brought with itself more lenient weather, it was still cold to sleep outside, and she felt grateful for the furs that somebody had carefully wrapped around her shoulders and for the heat of the small fire that glittered nearby. She stirred, drawing slightly closer to the fire, unwilling to leave the comfort of her bedroll just yet. It was an actual bedroll that she was snugged upon, Kallian noted somewhat confused, before rising properly.

"You awake?" Leliana's graceful figure was bent over her lute, her fingers running along the chords playing a silent tune. She wore a padded doublet that she used to wear under her armor, and a brown linen skirt that Kallian suspected was the remaining half of her Chantry robe.

Her voice was hoarser than before, but the affectionate lilting that Kallian had become accustomed to was there, soothing to the ears.

"Yes. You've been up for some time?"

"Quite. It was awkward at first, you know, I didn't know where I was." Leliana's lips curved wryly. "I literally stepped on Zev. Dangerous business to trample over an assassin in his sleep – they may run you through before you know it. Both him and Con decided I could use some help, afterwards; but then Con got bored of showing me around and started to dig – you know, to get to the other side of the world and such." Aside, Con whined at the veiled reproach.

The tents were up. Judging by the sound snoring, both Morrigan and Zevran were fast asleep. Other than that, it was a clear night, and the silence was only broken by the occasional hoof of an owl and the slight rattling of the trees. Kallian drew closer to the fire, but not too close, as she found herself unexpectedly shy. She felt like saying something for an introduction – last time they'd met, after all, had been almost a month before, and not so much of a happy circumstance. She had to say something, but what? 'All of this is my fault only' – no, bad line. 'I'd rather you wouldn't have done it.' No. 'Loghain might have been able to put a stop to all this' – worse, even. 'I'd have run that rat spew and lame excuse of a warrior through, but I couldn't.'

"Want some ale?" Leliana offered her own half-filled mug, breaking Kallian from her musings.

"Yes. Ale is good."

She grabbed at it and took a big swig, then she returned it without much thinking. There was a slight hesitation in Leliana's nimble fingers, as her knuckles brushed slightly against the mug before securing it. It was a passing moment, and it made Kallian's heart sink a little. Leliana may, or may not, have noticed, but it seemed she was determined not to dwell on downcast thoughts at the time.

"Nothing better than an honest Fereldan ale, yes? In Val Royeaux, one would stick some lemons into it and call it a panache –if you add some peach juice you'd have quite the drink… tasting of malt and fruit at the same time – best from both worlds…"

"I don't know if I could get used to such a drink. Sounds weird to me."

Leliana laughed quietly.

"Of course you wouldn't. I myself found it tedious at times. But then again, one cannot feed the guests at a banquet on freshly baked bread only, however wholesome that is otherwise."

"I suppose."

Whenever she heard Leliana speak of the wonders in Val Royeaux, Kallian couldn't help but marvel at the world of luxury and refinement that was laid in front of her. She could only begin to fathom the ways that someone used to such sophistications would miss them; however, of late, she leaned to believe that when her lover would resort to these memories as a pastime, more often than not, it was not out of yearning, but to dispel the awkward silence that opened ways for dreary thoughts to creep in. Kallian made her own clumsy attempt at conversation.

"So, what are you doing up at this late hour?"

"Waiting for you to wake up, I think. And, guarding the place – warding – how did that silly Templar put it –wardening, I think…"

They both laughed at the memory of a very nervous Kallian, overwhelmed by the hazard of the abomination that Connor had been host to, back at Redcliffe, trying to get across Lake Calenhad to the Tower of Magi and crossing paths with a daft Templar denying her rights as a Warden unless she'd proven it – until the Sten of the Beresaad had offered him a box of cookies and softened his edges. Definitely, it was material that real adventures were made of.

There was a precise moment for everyone when friendly talk turned into something more, Kallian thought. Either one grew aware of it or not, things were bound to change into something new from that moment on, be it delicate like the blossoming of a flower or rough like the stinging sharpness of a shrub full of thorns. Her moment with Leliana had been more than a year before, while idly chatting about hair. Leliana had been trying to corner her for a couple of months already, but she'd held her own and had taken naught of it too seriously, seeing that the lady had been a bard having spent too much time in a Chantry and all. However, some good laughs had accomplished what stories of Elindra and her soldier could not have, and Kallian had taken to wake one morning after the next wondering whether the bard had been an accomplished liar of epical dimensions or noblewomen of Orlais had truly been wearing living birds in their hair – and to stiff a laughter while she'd been at it. She'd known she'd been lost back then, but she'd indulged in it, and hadn't lived to regret it since.

Kallian sipped at her ale thoughtfully. It was late at night and the idle talk had done little to bring them any closer this time.

"You're awful quiet" Leliana said.

"I am."

"We must talk."

A cowardly part of Kallian's soul coiled at the words, as she said hastily

"No. Not tonight."

A soft hand cupped her cheek and turned her head gently. She hadn't faced Leliana the whole evening, Kallian noticed only at the moment, as she couldn't avoid the empty sockets that were staring back at her.

"How do I look?"

The question was unsettling in itself. The time of jokes was long past, and Kallian couldn't lie, be it to Leliana or herself.

"You look… frightening beyond reason," she said, feeling the whole world was sinking with her mistake – but Leliana merely nodded.

"Frightening enough to send you away?" The question was meant to be said in a lighter tone, but Leliana's voice broke somewhere in the middle of the phrase.

"No." Kallian said it firmly, and, somehow, it had all become too much, and she couldn't push it away anymore. She reached for Leliana, holding her tight, kissing her scarred cheeks. "No. I love you. Nothing would send me away."

"Good." Leliana held her close, but avoided the following kiss, with a hand pressed on Kallian's lips. "One more thing – I would never hurt you, you know that?"

"I know,"Kallian spoke softly – she knew what Leliana was talking about. "Can –the rest of it – wait until morning?"

"Yes. It's been a tiring day. Can you take me to bed?"

She could. She could head to the closest tent, which, fortunately, was the empty one, and crawl with her beloved on the same bedroll. She could hold her all night, and Kallian did so, after she tossed her cloak and her weapons in a corner of the tent and snug inside the warm fur coverings and kissed a half asleep Leliana squarely on the lips.


	6. Then, Love Came By

**_******Disclaimer: ******_**_The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><strong>Chapter 6 – Then, Love Came By <strong>

Judging by the milky light that crept inside through the seams of the tent, it must have been right before dawn when Kallian woke. Leliana had drawn closer during the night, seeking the warmth of bare skin. Kallian found her just so –with her cheek buried in Kallian's bare breast, her hand hidden under the folds of Kallian's undone doublet, with fingers laced around the breast band she'd seemingly removed quietly some time before.

There was this little game they used to play at times – mostly on weary nights, when they'd fallen asleep too tired for anything – one trying to remove the other's clothes without waking her. The one that had managed to remove or undo most layers of clothing won. The one who'd waken the other in doing so, lost. Of course Leliana would win most of the time. While they had both deft hands, the mastery clearly belonged to her. The memory of it made Kallian smile. Regardless of the disheartening state of things, Leliana was up to games, it seemed. Brave, brave knew better that allowing herself to be swayed by pain and dwell on hardship. The thought brought a surge of bitter-sweet tenderness that welled up in her chest – Kallian could play the game. After all, an earnest twinge had already crept to her fingers, and she started searching the sleeping one for a proper spot to start.

The hand hovered for one moment over the drawstring of Leliana's shirt, before finding a loose knot that could be pulled without much disruption. The slackened cloth barely revealed the line of the shoulder, in the place where the collarbone met the arm. She carefully parted the fabric from the skin, just so, that pulling it wouldn't tickle. Body heat wound up her fingertips, and, seeing it had been a while, Kallian barely harnessed the urge to taste the flesh she'd revealed. She slid her hand lower to the barely covered curve of one breast and breathed in the scent of wild honey that she knew so well. She exhaled briskly - which was all it took to startle Leliana in her sleep. Steely, lean fingers grasped the impudent hand and she darted up, saying with a barely stiffen laughter:

"You lose."

Seeing that games were done with before it began, and stealth was required no longer, Kallian squirmed and flexed her hand to finally grasp the much-sought-after prize, which she cupped eagerly, right before she found herself caught under Leliana's body, her mouth sealed with a vicious kiss. An unexpected wave of heat darted through her loins and she arched upwards, pressing harder against Leliana's thighs, already entangled with her own. They both breathed at the rasp move, half hungry and half asleep. Leliana took the invitation and lowered her hand.

Kallian welcomed the touch. She wasn't exactly ready and her body hadn't entirely woken yet, but that was of less importance. Leliana was too knowing not to recognize this kind of urge; it was hers too, it seemed, as she breathed sharply into Kallian's dry mouth. The need to cover the distance was demanding, and this coming together was soothing in its untamed way, pushing demons and shadows aside. They moved together hurriedly, as if to make up for all the time that had been lost.

Time didn't matter – only them, being back in one place, being reclaimed and claiming back the love, and all that had been lost to pain and fear. When she, in turn, took over Leliana's body, she took her time, building the tension bit by bit, carrying it high enough for them both to forget all else than the heat of their bodies and the rush of their blood, the searing light that struck Kallian underneath her closed eyelids with the abrupt strain of their entangled limbs and the impossible stretching of sinnews. They held each other tight long after it was over, waiting for their breaths to cool and their hearts to slow down. Leliana spoke, giving voice to the clear feeling that came with the overwhelming awareness of warm blood coursing their veins.

"Maker, we are both _alive."_

Neither of them really slept afterwards. Kallian snuggled in her lover's arms, and she let herself unwind and doze a little, reveling in the body heat and the smell of wild honey that filled their tent. It was new to her, this – unwinding – thing, and it felt good.

"I was prepared to lose you."

"No." Leliana's words startled her, and Kallian raised her head in protest.

"Yes. Not now – back on top of Fort Drakon."

Oh. Kallian had almost forgotten about that in the last couple of hours. It was like it had happened to somebody else, a couple of years before, and, regardless of the time she'd spent the month past thinking and fretting over it, it all seemed fine and smooth to her in the merry light of morning. She didn't feel like talking much about anything as unpleasant while she felt so wholesome. But Leliana wouldn't let it go that easily, it seemed.

"Kallian. Talk to me."

"I don't know what to say. I'm not all about duty and so. I simply couldn't bring myself to let Loghain do it, in the end."

"I think I understand – I mean, it is a hard choice to live with. So, I thought I would choose for you. But, I wondered, during this month – and I had quite the time to think it over – if it changed the way you felt about me. Then, I thought it must have, but that it didn't make any difference in the end. I was happy enough to know you alive."

Kallian reminisced the why's and how's of her qualms. As she tried to share them, she found herself in need to choose her words carefully. The thing that had troubled her the most, after all, had been Leliana's well-being – and Wynne's. Leliana had gotten the worst of it, yet. She certainly didn't need being frowned upon.

"I was relieved, back then, you know that. What happened after, well, that's an entirely different matter – Zevran rescued me from the Queen's camp, you know…"

"I know. Zev and Morrigan told me, last night."

"It's not that I believe that, with me dead, Anora wouldn't have gone after you, and I'm not the kind to be ungrateful when they get out of a dire situation alive. Still, I feel a bit off – like I cheated fate, or something."

"I didn't expect to live past that battle either," Leliana said gently, stroking Kallian's hair. Kallian sighed, and let her brow rest on her naked shoulder. Then she spoke softly, almost like an afterthought.

"I don't even want to think how you found out about this, seeing it's a well-guarded Warden secret and such."

"I didn't. Loghain came to me, that night at Redcliffe, before leaving with the army. He told me that a Warden was to slay the Archdemon and die in doing so, and that you'd offered. He asked me to stop you if I could – if the odds came between him and you. He said he wanted to redeem himself, and that you were too young to die. He seemed sincere. I agreed to it."

"That was all?"

"That was all."

"You – didn't hesitate?" Kallian frowned.

"No. I was impressed with the fact that he'd confided in me – an Orlesian – and the news he brought were kind of, well, unsettling. I agreed right away."

It made sense. That night, while Morrigan had come to offer her "loop in the hole", Loghain must have gone to Leliana's room. After refusing Morrigan, and thus sending her away, Kallian had sneaked to her lover's room, to spend one more night together – in a bed. She'd thought it very likely to be the last of those, and had been quite distraught. They had talked a bit, and Leliana'd said something that hadn't made much sense then, but seemed to be clearer in the aftermath. "I'm sure we'll find a way," she'd said.

"Has it never occurred you that, maybe, Loghain played us?"

"What? How?"

"I have wondered – how did Anora know to come after you and Wynne? It was as if she knew you would put a dagger poisoned with deathroot in my ribs to stop me from giving the final blow. That Wynne – almost died – again and was once more resurrected by that spirit, this time for all the world to see, was just the cream on the cake."

"I didn't think about it that way. Do you think that Anora would have agreed with her own father sacrificing himself?"

"Maybe he didn't tell her that part."

"Really, can you see Loghain capable of such a thing?"

"Yes. Very much so. Actually, I would rather doubt more his sudden lack of hate of both Orlesians and Grey Wardens. And I would definitely see him die to leave Anora rule over a Ferelden free of Blight, and Wardens, and clear his name in doing so."

"Then again, who would conceive such a far-fetched scheme over their own death?"

"Loghain loathed being a Warden and was burdened by guilt. He was also a soldier and didn't price anyone's life overly much. Maybe he did favor me, but it may also have been his way of gaining our trust."

"I don't know. I think he cared for you." There was a note of reproach in Leliana's lowered tone. Kallian gave up the argument.

"Maybe you're right. We'll never know now, either way."

The sun was high up when Kallian and Leliana emerged from their tent. Zevran and Morrigan were already up and about, busying themselves over breakfast. Morrigan had prepared an herb concoction of which both Kallian and Leliana received a steaming mug that the witch shoved in their hands while offering her purest scoff:

"For keeping your stamina high."

They both laughed.

Zevran seemed however to be less merciful. He abided for all of them to finish eating their cheese and dried fruit breakfast before saying anything remotely lecherous, but, as Kallian wiped the few stubborn crumbs that clung to the corner of her mouth, there was no stopping him. His in-depth hints over swollen lips and luxuriant display of knowledge over shrubs and bushes of all kinds and climates rendered even Leliana, who'd kept up with him for a while, wordless, so that, when he finally promised that there would be no more 'beating about the bush' from his part, she nudged him in the ribs so hard that it made him choke on his stamina draught. Served him well, Kallian thought, bent over by a fit of laughter.

They decided to take the day off and do some hunting. They hadn't much food left and it was a fine enough day in this side of land fairly untouched by blight. Downstream lay a meadow likely to be packed with game big and small, as the stream fell into a small pond and then widened in a ford of sorts, that made for a perfect watering hole. Although it was not a hunter's way to take down animals that came to quench their thirst right by the stream, further in the forest it was all fair game. Kallian strung her bow with satisfaction – there had been a month since she'd so much as touched the Spear-Thrower, and she'd barely realized that she missed the long war bow, which might not have been the best suited weapon for hunting, but which snugly fit in her hands, nevertheless.

Zevran was to watch the camp. Leliana had decided to go gather some firewood, with Con at her side, but then Morrigan had unexpectedly offered to second her. That meant that Con was going hunting, and he was as eager as his mistress – his happy bark stood for it.

She and Con trekked far past the meadow to lose their scent against the wind. In the month past, Kallian had not had either the time or the inclination to peruse the landscape, and she was taking in the beauty of an un-blighted Fereldan forest for the first time in months. There was much that she wasn't used to be surrounded by anymore – like the moss and liken growing only on the _right_ side of the trees, the shadowed one. The patches of green grass that grew in sun-stricken spots and the new buds spouting with fresh sap were a sight for sore eyes, the merry birds rising high through the leaves of ancient trees that were starting to unfold were chirping merrily, like the sky had never been blemished by a shade larger than that of a hawk, and the clear sky of Bloomingtide was harboring a heart-warming, glaring golden sun. Although she did have quite a choice of dark subjects to direct her musings to, Kallian was giving all of them pause while she enjoyed the plain beauty of the landscape. She took her time roving through the forest with the knowledge that she would sooner or later cross paths with some kind of game, and, truly, soon enough she stumbled upon a fresh trail that went against the wind. She found herself a good spot to wait, coveted underneath some shrubs, padded with fine small grass that invited one to lay down for a nap; then, she sent Con on the trail.

Kallian seated herself on the grass, the Spear-Thrower resting lazily on her knees. She relished in the peace of the place, abiding her time until Con was to send deer her way. Hunting was one pleasure of life that she hadn't been able to indulge in, lately. Hunting gave one time to think, to sort things out while waiting for the prey to show, under the benefit of sharpened attention. And sorting things out was something that Kallian needed badly.

It was complicated, the way relief mingled with pain. They had found Leliana, but finding her in such a state ached with a pain so dull that Kallian alomost didn't dare think about. Still, she had been right, Leliana; they were both alive, and that was no small miracle on behalf of the Maker. It was not becoming to disregard His gift. They would get through; they would make the best of it, together.

The only thing that Kallian had to make best of at the moment, however, was the one shot that she had on the young buck that Con had faithfully harnessed her way. Between her Darkspawn war bow and the teachings of Andruil, the elvhan goddess of the hunt, she knew what she had to do, and she enjoyed it. The Maker and the most reverent musings from before had nothing to do with it. She nocked an arrow and drew quietly, expecting the deer to enter her range, which it did, in a hammer of hooves pushed to the wildest gallop, almost passing her by. Knowing of the power of the bow, she aimed for the neck. She breathed once for each hit of the hooves, once, twice, then, with the next breath she released. The arrow flew true. Andruil would have approved of it, the way the arrow parted the head from the body and put an end to the beast's charge.

Kallian gathered the prey on her shoulders. It was warm still. The meat of the deer would keep the party fed for at least two or three days, and she smiled as she gained pace, Con barking happily while he tangled through and around her feet. Him receiving the head of the beast, to toy with or swallow full as he pleased, had probably nothing to do with it. Nor had the lengthy stride Kallian put up had anything to do with the shrubbery full of fresh, untarnished woodland strawberries that she spotted while randomly running through the forest before, where she hoped to pick a few on her way back.

Yet, Kallian wasn't the only one with an interest in strawberries, it seemed, as she spotted a huge brown bear groaning with pleasure while munching through the shrubbery. Too bad, poor beast. It could have waited a few hours more, before tearing the small miracle of nature down utterly, couldn't it? Kallian begun her incantation in haste, entirely absorbed with averting the beast from doing more damage. It was her shrubbery, she'd found it first, and she was determined to have some of those fruits. Unspoiled, if messire bear willed it. Truly, messire bear did, as it soon left its munching and groaning to join at Kallian's side. A Ranger was a friend in need, and when a Ranger called one could not but heed their calling. Truly, messire bear. This was the way things worked. Kallian smirked at her own power.

Not many of the wild strawberries were spoiled. She plucked quite a few, tossing them in her discarded helmet. Those that had been chewed upon she handed to the fazed bear.

"Now, messire, aren't they tastier without all the leaves and sprouts?"

The bear seemed to agree with that, as it fed quietly from the fruits in her palm. Its gaze was entirely tame as it watched her rummage through the leaves in search of more strawberries.

The helmet filled, Kallian rose and took up her burden once more. She released the great bear almost as an afterthought. It collapsed from the exertion of having its will controlled so, but Kallian didn't worry much; she knew the bear would be fine after a few hours' sleep. She patted the beast's head, gently whispering "There, messire bear, when you'll wake up you'll have all the strawberries for yourself. I left some of the juiciest ones especially for you."

When she and Con got back in camp it was late in the afternoon. Zevran, who was tending to the fire and stirring the embers with a stick, looked positively sullen. Leliana and Morrigan were not back yet.

"Ah, there you are, beautiful. I was beginning to think that I was under a punishment of sorts, being left here like a faithful wife waiting by the fire for her three favorite husbands to come home with the food of the day."

Kallian laughed.

"Well, if you feel so much like a good wife to-day, perhaps you wish to mend the meat and cook as well? While I gather some fire-wood," she added quickly, at the sight of sheer unhappiness that Zevran's face oozed, "as it is quite obvious that the ladies have been up to something else, seeing that they're not back yet."

"Yes, Warden." He seemed appeased, as he took the slain deer and set to the stream. Zevran being Zevran, though, he couldn't let it pass without adding, "if you find yourself in need of a bath, later on, and nobody else shows in due time to scrub your back, I'll be down there."


	7. Pit Roast

****_******Disclaimer:******_****_The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><strong>Chapter 7 - Pit Roast<strong>

"What are you carrying a lute for? I thought we were to gather firewood."

"Yes, well. For it is my only weapon to rely on now, that's what it's for."

"Oh."

"I was wondering – you and her. I would have expected things to have changed between you. I was surprised this morning to discover 'twas not so."

"If you are trying to coax me in a debate over the nature of love and desire, I must warn you I am not in the proper mood, Morrigan."

" 'Tis strange to think, only a couple of months ago you would have harped endlessly over the subject. Some things _have_ changed after all, it seems. But 'tis not that which I meant to ask. Pray tell, don't you feel the urge to place the blame on _her_ for the loss of your eyes?"

"What? Maker, no! How can you even think of it as such?"

"I do not. But I think it's easy with a loss such important as yours to be swept in by bitterness and resentment. I most certainly would be, to some extent."

"Answer me this, Morrigan. You left us at Redcliffe, before the battle. Why are you back?"

"Let it suffice to say that the Warden needed me."

"Need may arouse for anyone at any given time. Surely there are enough people in need that you don't run to rescue. I know it not in your nature to say such things, so I shall name it for you – perhaps you are back because you care for her?"

"Perhaps."

"Well, I do too. Is this not reason enough for you and I to make peace with one another?"

"You misread me again, I'm afraid. 'Tis not for the sake of petty quarrel that I asked."

"No?"

"The veil near Highever has been torn one too many. You saw what happened to that poor woman, Clarice. Should you feel unnatural resentment or bloodlust, it may well be a consequence of the evil inflicted upon you in the near closeness of the place. If you notice something of the like, you can talk to me. I advise you would; I have knowledge that can be of help."

"I… don't know what to say. Thank you, I think…"

"Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe your mind is strong enough. But, better be warned."

"Kallian needn't trouble herself with this. Not unless something really happens."

"I agree. And – forgive me if my words have inflicted more pain. 'Twas of necessity."

"Huh… Morrigan – did you hear that? I think there are some horses nearby."

"Horses? What of them?"

"Maybe we should try and secure some – for fast travel and such. I get the feeling that we are going to do that quite a lot in the days to come."

"Secure – you mean to steal some horses? Now?"

"Come, it will be good fun…"

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><p>While Zevran went downstream to prepare the meat, Kallian busied herself with wood chopping. The withered tree that she'd fell whole needed to be parted in chips, sticks and fittingly sized logs, and, seeing that it was as tedious a matter as it could get when one had only a short, one-hand axe, more fit to stick snugly in skulls and bones and splinter them while drawn out than neatly cut through, Kallian was getting tired, and small beads of sweat begun to gather on her forehead. Con was digging again, she noticed absentmindedly while she wiped her brow. She meant to stop him at first, but then the dog's digging gave her an idea – maybe he'd have his share in preparing the evening's meal, for once. She let him dig.<p>

By the time she had finished with the tree, Con had succeeded in making the hole so large and deep that only the curt tail that waggled in the grass gave up the presence of one very obstinate mabari that was throwing clunks of earth up in the air, making a mess all around the pit. Kallian stopped him eventually, and she eyed the sky uneasily – the sun was almost down, and Leliana, who had left with Morrigan during late morning, presumably to gather firewood, wasn't back yet. It was not exactly something to worry about, knowing Leliana's gift for getting distracted; perhaps Morrigan too had decided to gather some herbs. Still, the day was almost gone and Kallian would have preferred everyone in the camp for the evening, and accounted for. The order snapped short.

"Con, fetch Leliana."

Zevran was bringing the deer from the stream. He dispatched it on the grass and measured the result of Con's work suspiciously.

"What have you been up to, my dear Warden?"

"Well, some of us have been working all afternoon… How would you feel about a pit roast?"

"Pit roast? I don't think I've ever tasted such a dish. Care to enlighten me?"

Kallian laughed.

"It used to be an Alienage specialty of sorts – it had its advantages, as one couldn't tell that the neighbor was cooking, in order to invite themselves to a helping or two. I've noticed that the Dalish make it too – if not for the same reasons, then for leaving no traces, I suspect. We will need some boulders too, but everything else is quite set, as you see."

"Boulders? That is one odd ingredient. What for?"

Kallian was definitely in a light mood. She grinned mischievously as she answered.

"To stuff the deer, of course."

Once they got everything at the ready and the said boulders, which they retrieved from the stream, dried, Kallian begun to set the pit. First came one layer of rocks, which she thoroughly covered with the still burning embers picked from the hearth of their campfire; then, boulders again, and one thick coat of dried leaves, upon which she carefully placed the deer whole, evenly rubbed with herbs and stuffed with smaller rocks. Another layer of leaves followed, and the last of the boulders. On top of it all they build the fire anew, and it started to glitter merrily in the already waning light of the dusk.

"All fine and well," said Zevran, who seemed to finally grasp the feeling of the recipe, "but, isn't this going to take a while?"

"It is. But then again, Morrigan and Leliana are not back yet. Nor Con, for that matter."

Zevran nodded. It was wisest to keep themselves busy while they waited. Not that either of them thought that something had gotten amiss, still, worrying over things would have been as a wearisome business as ever.

"I've been meaning to show you something for a while now. Come."

Zevran reached for his backpack and started rummaging for something. Much to Kallian's surprise, he produced every bit of armor that she had ever given to him during their travels; he had kept them all. Lain in the grass in front of her were the Felon's Coat, Wade's superior Drakeskin Set and the Shadow of the Empire. A fine pair of Dalish gloves and the Silverhammer Trackmasters were there, too.

"Zevran, you kept all of them?"

Zevran had taken to the Ancient Elven pieces of armor that Kallian had given him piece by piece, as they had come by, and had proudly worn no other armor ever since.

"Yes. I figured, since both you and Leliana have lost your gear one way or another, you'd better pick some of these. It's good armor, after all – you should help yourselves."

All, except for Master Wade's, which had been especially built to suit Zevran, had been adjusted more than once. It'd be no feat to adjust them again. Kallian picked the Shadow of the Empire and probed it gently, as to get used to the feeling of it again. The Duster brigandine had served her well in those early days, and she had worn it with pride, seeing that it had been her first actual piece of armor, after the rags and scraps of leathers that she'd been used to. She'd bought it in the city of Orzamar, after the coronation of King Harrowmont, and it'd seemed awfully expensive back then, as she had never spent fifteen gold pieces on – pretty much anything – at once before; Leliana had talked her into buying it, though – "You deserve it," she'd said. It had been a little wide and quite on the short side, but Legnar had done an admirable job in fitting it, unexpectedly, rather, coming from one as such as him. She'd never given it to Zevran for wear, but rather as a spare when needed, and it had been never readjusted since. The steel plates were still in place, the old as well as the new, and the adjustments at the shoulders and waist still felt differently, less worn than the rest. Other than that, the coat still bore the signs of use and the marks of the High Dragon in Haven that nobody had strived to remove – the dragon that she, Leliana, Zevran and Wynne had fell before entering the Gauntlet. Kallian put the batterd old piece of armor down with a sigh.

"I always find it endearing to peruse bits of armor that I don't use any more. It's like meeting old friends, don't you agree?" Zevran said, softly.

"True enough." She could swear that her musings had not lasted but a moment, yet, when she looked around, the evening had turned a deeper shade of blue, and the fire was already throwing long, dancing shadows on their faces.

Then, a curt crackling noise startled them both, and Zevran shifted anxiously.

"Warden. I think somebody is coming."

"Yes. Quite a lot of them, if my ears don't deceive me." Kallian could well hear the bouncing of hooves on the ground, and her ears shifted to catch more of the faint, dim tune that accompanied it. A bark that obviously belonged to Con, who charged towards them only a moment after, followed, and within the minute the small clearing filled with more than a dozen horses –tall, slender coursers, and hoofing destriers sixteen hands tall trotted around the slender figure with a lute, who was the source of the otherworldly song and the reason of their current fascination, that was, as expected, Leliana. Morrigan was nowhere to be seen.

"What the…" Kallian was beyond bewilderment.

Leliana laughed playfully, and didn't give the lute rest as she spoke.

"We found some horses on the way. Since we didn't know which you'd prefer, we took them all…"

"Took them? You mean, stole them? Where from? And where's Morrigan?" Kallian was getting angry, now that the bafflement was wearing off. But Leliana seemed undisturbed.

"One question at a time, my dear. Yes, we stole them. They're from the Highever stables, I suspect. I doubt any other around here would possess such fine stock. Whereas Morrigan is distracting the stable master and she'll be a while, I think."

"I'm right here."

By the looks of it, Morrigan had just flown down from the nearest tree. Leliana frowned.

"You were supposed to keep them busy a little longer."

"Don't worry, I left the stable master and his men quite a long way from here. I doubt he'll be back to see his horses gone any time soon, and even less able to trace them here."

"Be as you say."

While Morrigan was shrugging off the leaves and grass from her robes, a black stallion parted from the trotting circle and started to graze at the hem of her skirt. Leliana seemed to take notice and giggled.

"Is it the stallion, Morrigan? It appears that the magic of love outdoes the lure of my song…"

Kallian laughed, Morrigan scoffed, and Zevran asked what it was that the ladies found so funny.

"We had a bit of a problem, Zevran. That is how we got delayed." Leliana could barely stiff her laughter, which delayed her retelling considerably, but she went on as soon as she managed to contain it. "See, Zev, Morrigan shifted into a mare in order to lure the stable master away, but she got cornered somehow and herded with the bunch. It took me a while to set her loose again. She got herself an admirer in the meantime, as you well can see…" More giggles followed, and more of Morrigan's scoffing.

"The blasted thing chased me all over the meadow. I had to _bite_ him in order to demean his _enthusiasm…_"

"Not by much, I'd say. Biting can be … questionable, in regard to your intentions, my dear witch. Next time, you may wish to use a more explicit – rear punch, perhaps?"

"Zevran…" Kallian scolded him unconvincingly, between snickers. Leliana's words brought them both to more down-to-Thedas business, though.

"Well, choose your mounts; I won't be able to hold this much longer"

"I, for one, have never ridden a horse" Kallian said, while uneasily measuring a fine bay courser that seemed taller with every step that it took in her direction. Zevran hadn't, either, he admitted, but he shrugged and decided to take his chances nevertheless.

He turned to the shadows in the glimpse of an eye and jumped on the nearest horse from the rear. Naturally, such a deed frightened the courser out of its wits, and the poor beast darted forward in a tangle of hooves and limbs, neighing like being ridden by a horde of demons, instead of one lithe, more scared than itself, reckless elf. It crumbled over the nearest tent and collapsed, rider and all. Leliana turned her face in the direction of the noise, her brow knit in the effort of understanding, or perhaps worrying over Zevran's fate.

Kallian thoroughly relaxed at the sight of the blond assassin untangling himself from the ropes and shattered rods of the tent, as the maddened horse lost its trace through the trees, with the tent canvas still hung over its head. Certainly she could do better than that.

The lilting tune from Leliana's lute was slowing down and fading bit by bit. She had to choose fast. Near her, she spotted a huge roan destrier that seemed as friendly as any, in her eyes. As she stretched out a hand, the horse snorted, stirred and jerked its head back and up – it was definitely not a good start. More out of sheer stubbornness than for any other reason Kallian didn't withdraw her hand. She expected, somehow, that the curiosity would get the better of the beast, though – which it did, eventually, as the horse drew nearer and tentatively sniffed her hand.

"There you go" she whispered gently to the horse. "There you go."

The beast nudged at her hand, and she dared to stroke its muzzle. She closed in slowly, careful not to stir the huge war horse. It was a beautiful, proud mare that seemed happy enough with Kallian's attentions as to push her head forward and sniff further, at her cloak and hair. The horse's breath was warm on her cheek, and she stretched her hands further on the beast's neck, feeling the sheer power under the warm, taut skin. It felt good, for the beast even more so, seemingly, as it had got enough of sniffing and ensued to more thorough means of deepening the acquaintance.

"Aww, stop nibbling at my ear!"

Kallian shook her head to rid herself of the unwanted attention, and the mare seemed to take offense, as she withdrew her head slightly and snorted. Kallian laughed.

"I don't suppose that you'll allow me on your bare back, now that we're friends and all?"

She had to try it, though, and sooner, rather than later. The camp had been quiet for a while now, as Leliana had stopped playing at some point. Kalian took a breath.

Con barked and growled at once, and the horses started to fret. Kallian had been too wrapped in her dealings with the horse to take notice, but several men's voices could be heard clearly shouting their way through the forest. They were closing in to the small clearing, more than a dozen very angry men set to retrieve their horses. It didn't sit well with Kallian to resort to more bloodshed. The thoroughly learnt thieving ways from her youth in Denerim settled in, and she found she was very single-minded about this one.

"Grab a horse, and _run._"

Kallian herself crouched down to snare the closest piece of armor – she happened upon the Felon's Coat. It could have been any of the other pieces; she didn't mind much, just as well.

The horses were now fidgeting and snorting, jerking their heads while they picked up the pace, under a general wave of mood that quite accurately resembled panic. One switched its pace to a gallop and took off, losing its trace among the trees, and the others were beginning to bulk together, ready to follow suit.

Kallian found herself wordlessly gaping, as she saw Leliana grab the horse that brushed near her at the wither and sprint along it in matched pace, then jump up on its back, as the horse rose on its hind legs and neighed. Her blood froze, but she needn't have worried, as the horse fell to a sure, steady trot and turned curtly, as Leliana straightened herself and guided it to the stream. The utter grace of accomplished horsemanship clashed with the aloofness of the gaunt eye sockets directed her way, but not quite – a bit up and on the left side – melting in a picture of disquieting beauty, as Leliana grinned.

"Come, then."

Kallian followed and jumped on the back of her roan mare that had seemingly waited for her, forgetting all the hesitations of before. Leliana had crossed the stream with her courser. She'd made the horse jump a tad bit too early, likely in order to keep things on the safe side, but the animal had carried beautifully and glided over the stream without too much effort. Without knowing exactly if she was doing it right, Kallian tightened her knees when she and her mare reached the edge – for the horse's power and speed it seemed to be a mere trifle, and they too got safely on the other side. Kallian leaned over the neck of her mount, allowing her to gain speed, but more so to steady herself. Ahead, Leliana got in and out her view, sliding effortlessly throughout the trees, and Kallian couldn't take her eyes off the sight, which made her awfully conscious of her own clumsiness, but also filled her with warmth and pride at the display – there was her woman, that who rode like a banshee, that was _her_ Leliana.

They might have been riding at full speed for maybe three or four leagues, when Leliana slowed the pace and turned her horse, trotting it around in circles while she waited for the others. First arrived Kallian, with Con shortly to follow, and after a while Zevran showed up, riding a fine, slender, yellow-eyed mare with dark coat, followed closely by the black stallion from before – without a rider.

"Zevran is riding a horse."Leliana noticed, with only a hint of mirth.

"Indeed I am. This lovely one here crossed my path, almost _inviting_ me to mount, and bore with me all the way here. I still don't understand how it was that I didn't notice it before…" He patted the mare on the neck with genuine affection, suitable for one's favorite pet, but only for a moment did he manage to do so, as in the next he found himself un-horsed for the second time that night – or, rather, horse-less, and tangled in the grass with no other than Morrigan herself.

" 'Twas I, thou square-headed flaming idiot!"

Zevran appeared positively flustered.

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to …ride you, as it were."

Morrigan rolled her eyes.

"_Now_ you sound like Alistair." Seeing the disheveled state Zevran was in, she softened a little and added hastily – "You can have the stallion, though. I don't need a mount."

Hadn't Zevran been in such a star-stricken state, he might have retorted something along the lines of Morrigan's presumed preference to relate to the stallion rather as a mare than as a human. As things were, though, he was speechless. It had been a long night for him.

"So, here we are. No tents, no supplies, most of our spare pieces of good armor left behind" Kallian resumed. "But, we have horses."

"Let's not forget about that pit roast we left behind." Zevran chipped in.

"Are you mad at me?"Leliana asked tentatively.

"No. No, you tried for the best – and, Highever horses or not, with everything we left at camp, I think that they've been paid for fully. One question, though. Do you think they are following us still?"

"I don't think so. But we're not nearly far enough to be sure. What I think is that they'll rummage around the camp for a day or two, in case we want to go back there."

"Right. We should put some distance between them and us, then." Kallian hesitated. She was not sure if the timing was right –but, seeing that they had little choice but to ride all night, anyway, she could very well share.

"I've been thinking. We still have to find Wynne. We're sodding close to Aeonar, yet we have no clue of its whereabouts."

"Rummaging blindly through the woods in hope that we would stumble upon it eventually seems poor thinking to me."

"How about flying and sighting it from above?"

"It seems you've taken to rely too much on my abilities, elf. 'Tis too dangerous a task for each and every of us getting too near Aeonar without the proper preparations."

"That leaves us where we started."

"If I may – I think there are two places where we can start looking. First, the Circle of Magi. The other one is the Chantry in Denerim."

"We have to split, then."

The counsel lasted the better part of one watch. In the end they agreed that Zevran would go with Morrigan to the Circle, while Kallian and Leliana would head to Denerim. Kallian wanted to see her family, also, and Leliana said something about some letters that Anora had seized from her pack before the fight atop Fort Drakon. Right before dawn, they parted ways and headed each to their designated destination.

They had traveled quietly for a while, their horses trotting shoulder to shoulder at leisure, when Leliana broke the silence. In the crisp light of dawn, the sun still waiting to rise up threw reddish shadows on their faces.

"Kallian, what color is my horse?"

"It's a chestnut. Goes with your hair."

The gentle, slightly saddened little smile that flew on Leliana's lips, Kallian found, was gratifying enough. Their horses were pacing quietly, and their hands found each other of their own accord, their fingers entwined, as they walked further into the rising sun.


	8. No Place Like Home

****_******AN:******_****

****__****_This chapter was particularly hard to write - it has a bitter air about it, quite hard to chew. I have to say first that all of Kallian's kin are quite close to my heart, and it was a tough task to picture them with their flaws, frustrations and misconceptions - as I would honestly expect them to be, rather than perfect beings that support Kallian in whatever choices she makes. In my defense, I have to say that at my last play-through with Kallian Soris seemed rather bitter to me - I don't remember the exact quote, but, after the Unrest in the Alienage quest, he said something like 'You're the hero-and-all' and I thought I detected this hint of resentment - maybe it's just me, dunno._

_I apologize if I offended anybody with my approach; I also have to say I treated Alistair rather badly (although I'm quite fond of him as well)... but I'll make up to him._

_Also, I apologize for the delayed update, but that is something that I will make up for soon - this here is only half of what chapter 'No Place Like Home' _was_ initially, and I hope to post the other half this weekend._

_I hope you'll - well, not exactly enjoy - this chapter, but, rather, get a feeling of them all, each with their respective drama. If it works for you, I'll know I've done them justice. If not, well, I'd love to know what you think, either by review or PM. I'm open to debate and con-crit. _

_So, here we go (deep breath...)_

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><p><strong><strong><em><strong><strong><strong>Disclaimer:<strong>****_****_The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><strong>Chapter 8 – No Place Like Home <strong>

_Redcliffe, 18 Bloomingstide 31:9 Dragon_

_It had to happen, sooner or later. As Anora put it, it had to happen rather sooner if disavowing her was not among his intentions. That doesn't change how he feels about the whole thing. _

_His head is still heavy from the wine he had last night. It is very early in the morning, not yet past dawn, and he stares east, right into the sun, from the battlements of the Redcliffe castle. Towards Denerim. They will have to go there, sooner or later, he thinks briefly, before the memory of the night's events comes back hauntingly. He thinks of Leliana. He can't help it. After all it is because of her that the night's events went astray. He closed his eyes only for a moment, enough for the memories to engulf him – underneath his tightly closed eyelids he saw the piercing blue gaze, and the lilting, soothing voice resounded underneath his skull right behind the ears. He would whisper her name in that moment, and he would open his eyes to see her lean gently over his naked body; but then, it was only Anora that he found. He deflated instantly and thoroughly, and no matter what Anora did to him afterwards he found himself unable to perform. _

_It is only him that is such a failure. A King that can't even get it on._

"_My King."_

_Anora has joined him on the battlements. Her voice is soft and soothing as she puts an elegant hand on his sleeve, and Alistair wonders where this sudden kindness has come from. It's not like he's used to expect such from her. She looks small and vulnerable in the cold light, perhaps due to the fact that she wears only a kirtle under the cloak and she is shivering slightly. _

"_I – don't know what to say."_

"_There is no need to say anything, My Lord. We can try again, when we will feel – more at ease with each other."_

_He is not at all sure if she expects it, or whether it is suiting to their station, but he puts a tentative arm around her shoulders to stop her from shivering as he answers._

"_I would like that."_

_He suddenly realizes that he has spoken the truth, and fails to notice he's forgotten all thoughts of Leliana. Yes, he would very much like **that**, and feeling more at ease with his Queen – sooner, rather than later._

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><p>Shianni wiped her brow with her sleeve. Though the air was warm enough, there was a cumbersome dampness in the air that didn't let one breathe right; that, with the sickening clouds that had never left Denerim's sky since the battle, added to the chore of doing mostly anything of late. It was high time she'd take a break anyhow, having been washing hose, shifts and trews since noon for Soris, Cyrion and herself. She had only a couple of whites left to wash, before getting a dress ready for her own work-day on the morrow and she'd be done with. Shianni was taking advantage of her day off to put the house in due order; seeing that all three of them, uncle Cyrion, Soris and herself were of late working most days from early morning to last light – uncle Cyrion more, even, since he'd found that job in the marketplace, as the merchants wanted their job done and, while they had the right coin to go with it, they demanded their people to work till late hours of the day. Not that Shianni was complaining over the sudden call for working hands; the Alienage elves were thriving, faring even better than before the blight, as, with the reconstruction of Denerim and whatnot, shems couldn't afford to be picky on who to entrust certain tasks with anymore. More so, since Anora had left behind huge amounts of coin from the Royal coffers, to help with it all, before taking leave to Redcliffe. Still, that left the house unkempt most days, little time to gather around the dinner table at night, and mostly no one to share a word with during day-time. Shianni stretched, and shoved the next piece of clothing in the lukewarm water.<p>

"Oy, there."

Lost in her musings, Shianni hadn't noticed how late in the day it was- Alarith had just arrived with supplies, which meant it was already the time when he'd close the store. He'd brought a bundle with freshly-baked bread and three thin slices of dried meat – only the Maker knew how he could get his hands on meat these days, be it fresh or dry, when shems didn't even have a working marketplace anymore and the rich spent huge coin to get their hands on whatever scarce supplies the daring merchants that ventured cross the blighted lands could bring to Denerim. Alarith was the best.

"How goes it?"

"As it is." Shianni gestured to the pile of clothes. "How goes it, Alarith?"

Such and such. Trade was good. The weather, not overly endearing. Children were children, though, and would play in the mud regardless. He was keeping them around him as he could, to help with the shop and whatnot, but it seemed not enough. The young one had taken ill the other day, for the foul weather, no doubt, and, with Althana gone, no one was left to look after him. He had to leave Merrian, the oldest, at home, to take care of his brother, and Merrian was a fine lad, fourteen summers already, but that was no task for a boy. He'll soon have to take up a job outside, too, and, while Alarith was the last to complain for the amount of work to be found, Merrian would be missed around the house. And, by Andraste, it was _hard_ for a lone man to look after all four of them… Shianni nodded knowledgeably, and would have said something too, but for Soris who was coming down the muddy pathway. Alarith bode his farewell.

"He's pestering you again? I'll break his legs when I see him next."Soris frowned, having seemingly returned from work in a quite foul mood.

"He's lone, brother, and he's brought us meat. Let him talk."

"I don't give a rat's tail. He's a widower. He wouldn't dare talk like that to my sister, had he not lent an ear to the rumors."

"The rumors are true, Soris. You know it as well as I," Shianni said, with a tired voice. "Alarith is not from our Alienage, you know. Don't tell you wish for me to end my days alone."

"Even so. He'll never ask your hand in marriage, mark my words."

Shianni knew better than to retort to a hungry and worn-out Soris. Though her shoulders had sunken slightly, her manner gave no other clue of how the matter stood with her. She was by now used to the way men around her, family or not, were seemingly unable of giving her 'issue' rest – all, but Alarith.

It was around that time when Kallian chose to show up. The small, slender, cloaked and hooded figure who closed in at pace stirred a grain of hopeful recognition in her cousin's eyes – but it wasn't until she revealed her features just so that Shianni dared believe the truth of it. Her cousin was back from the dead - again.

"Do come in," she said quickly, taking heed to the sign of concealment her cousin made from under the cloak, leaving the half-washed linens as they were in the grayish water. She entered the hut, and the hood followed suit.

"Cousin!" Soris jumped at the sight, spitting and coughing at his half-chewed morsel of stale bread, as Kallian revealed herself fully.

The time had passed, and not in a way favorable to any of the three, either. They eyed each other awkwardly, in perfect silence, as the full awareness of how different they all were from those who, no more than two years before, were so merrily chasing ale with tall tales and looking eagerly to their future, supposedly bound to bring them husbands and families and a word of their own in the grown-ups world, sunk in. That future was forever gone, and, as they saw regret mirrored on each other's faces, they also measured silently the toll that the past year had taken on them, too steep and much too early. Soris was beginning to show bad teeth, and his crooked smile had a fair amount of bitterness under it. Shianni's hair had grown longer and unkempt, making the newly grown grey strands more visible altogether. Kallian had grown even thinner and her cheekbones were even more protruding underneath the weathered skin of her gaunt cheeks, as if she had dried up on the inside. The smile she put up didn't quite manage to reach her eyes, although she grabbed her cousins close and tight in a hearty hug.

"It's good to see you both."

Soris clapped her back, affectionately.

"How are you, cousin? Tell us all of it."

Shianni, though, wasn't about to get over things so quickly; she had things to say, and then some, and she was getting more wound-up as she spoke.

"Hold it! You _promised_ you'll be back after the battle. You didn't give us all a sign. We thought you dead, for the _second_ time in _one year_. How could you not think of us, not one bit?"

"It's a long story, Shianni, but I _couldn't._" Kallian said, half apologetic and half annoyed. "If it helps, I can tell you that I was very nearly dead – again…"

It didn't, apparently.

"How dare you show up like that, without a word yet again? ...what did you just say?" Kallian arched an eyebrow, as her words were seemingly beginning to sink in.

"Oh, _that_ explains how you look as if you haven't eaten or slept for a full month!..."

Kallian was on the verge of laughter. She knew better than to annoy her fiery cousin more, though, so she bit her lip before thanking her for the kind words. It was comforting to see some things never changed, altogether.

As usually, Soris was utterly cut out from saying anything when Shianni got words pouring out. He seemed to find a break, at long last.

"Shianni, let her be. She'll tell us what happened, if you let her breathe."

"Been travelling, but that's about it. Not half as tiresome as you'd expect. Actually, I have slept – and eaten – quite enough of late, thank you." Contradicting her composure, Kallian's Warden belly growled at the reminder of food. She wasn't about to impose herself on the – already scarce – table of her kin, so she ignored her always-present hunger and went on.

"As, for the part of people knowing me dead, I should very much like to keep it that way. I can't rightly tell you why, but, please, don't share the news overly much. I came here for you and Father alone."

"What have you gotten yourself into this time, cousin?" Shianni jumped yet again. Before Kallian could reply to that, more of that was to follow, it seemed, were it not for Cyrion's arrival, who couldn't have chosen a better moment to come home. Kallian let out a breath and, as more hugging ensued, she let herself lean against her father like she hadn't done since a kid, probably; it was a clear enough sign for all those present of how genuinely tired she really was. Cyrion offered a most required break from all the pestering, as he seated them all around the table and poured a stout of ale for everyone. Kallian unwound a bit and she begun recalling this and that, bits from the fight, mostly, slight hints that the Queen didn't want Warden heroes roaming around the place after the Blight was done with, and she let out she'd travelled mostly for the past month and a half. Then, she surprised all at the sudden change of topic as she turned to Shianni with a question.

"Shianni. What of the Ashes that I left with you?"

"Ah, cousin." The wide smile on her face was proof enough for Kallian that she hit one of Shianni's soft leaned forward, more than willing to listen.

"We found that the Ashes cure the blighted land – have you seen how green and healthy our Vhenandahl has grown of late?"

"Oh? It is, isn't it." Kallian had seen the Vhenandahl before going to her father's house, but had barely taken note of the thriving tree – of course it was supposed to be much more affected by the Blight; she hadn't thought of that when she'd passed by.

"And, have you seen that there is no trace of taint in the Alienage ground, as well?..."

"I haven't made much of it, you know – since the darkspawn never actually entered here, I thought it was due to that."

"No, it is because I sprinkled some in every corner, and on every house" Shianni said smugly, taking obvious pride in it.

"I see." As Shianni's face became brighter, Kallian's disposition seemed to darken by the moment. "Do they cure people, as well?"

"From the taint, you mean? It seems so, yes. We never arrived to try them on the firsthand tainted, though. Guards from the palace came and slain them all – Queen's edict, or so they said." Shianni sighed, but went on, without giving Kallian space to say anything at the news. "The others, though, who were plagued second, as it were, were cured, yes."

"I'm sorry" Kallian said in all seriousness. Obvious as it may have been that she herself had at one time or another dealt with people touched by taint, it was still no trifle, and she wouldn't let pass this by. Shianni went on speaking, though.

"I'm sorry that I can't answer your question, though, unless you're up to gathering some more, to find out…"

"How do you mean, cousin?"

"I used them all. I used them all to cure the land in the Alienage."

"Oh." Kallian put a face that spoke of her disappointment, but not overly much. "Yes, that would be it. I should gather some more" she said, without a hint of mirth.

The eve went by, and soon after Kallian rose to take her leave.

"Dine with us" Cyrion said, as expected.

"Can't. I'm not here of my own." The answer came curter than expected.

Cyrion didn't seem to be put off at that.

"Please. It would do us all good to break bread together."

"I must be on my way soon, lest I want someone to take notice of my being here…"

"Bring your people, too. We have yet to thank them."

It seemed that he wouldn't take no for an answer, and Kallian was starting to give up.

"Just a one is here. I would have to speak with her."

"By all means. Maker knows we didn't have time to talk, last time. Tell her that she's most welcome."

Kallian arched one eyebrow, tilting her head just so. Had Father just hinted what she thought he had, or was it simply Cyrion's hospitality speaking? She couldn't very well ask about that, as well as she couldn't rightly ask what supplies were needed for dinner. She briefly mused on the how's and when's of this occurrence – this sudden impossibility of plainly speaking with her kin.

"I will" she said, before turning on her heels. Then off she went.

"I can't believe you, uncle…" Shianni's shrill voice resounded clearly in the silence that followed. "I mean, Kallian and that – shem – woman, of all things!..."

"Listen, you two." Cyrion seemed very serious, like always when he would have important matters to speak about. "Adaia was Dalish, did you know?" Of course they hadn't known that – before the Blight, people in the Alienage even doubted that the Dalish existed at all. Nobody talked about things as this. "I was a cook for the Arl of Southron Hills back then. One day, the lords went out to hunt deer, it was mid Kingsway, I remember, and they got almost all of us out as beaters. Now, the lords wouldn't exactly be careful with their shots; they would take down quite everything that moved. Us beaters knew better than to get too close to the hart we were herding their way, but the young Dalish who had been chasing it out of the wilds for three days in a row did not, and she was perhaps too tired and too near to finishing her hunt to take notice. They shot her by mistake, the lords, and we took her in, nursed her back into health. We fell in love, me and her, and we ran off. She thought her clan would welcome us – and they did, until we went and said we wanted to be together. Adaia was promising as a huntress, but had not received her vallaslin; the Dalish could make little use of me; I couldn't hunt, I had no lore, knew no craft, and I could hardly make a living there. So, the Keeper forbade Adaia any fellowship with one such as I, and, seeing that we were relentless in seeking one another still, he had me banished from the clan. When she chose to follow, they renounced her, told her she was of their clan no more. We came to the Alienage in Denerim, where I'd grown as a child, and Valendrian took us in. Kallian was on the way. Adaia never said a word, and I never asked how she felt about giving up her home for me. But she was restless, and always prone to fighting; maybe she hid her bitterness that way. So, what I'm trying to say is this – whatever the two of you may be thinking, don't push such a choice on my little girl. Let her come home, when she needs to."

"She's already made her choice."Soris muttered bitterly.


	9. Dirty Fighting

****_******AN:******_****

_I apologize for the delayed update - I know I promised one for the weekend. Well, what can I say? Things don't always work out as expected, and I am still not entirely happy with this chapter. A promise is a promise, though, and I hope I'll find the time to rewrite some of this someday (if I won't be convinced that it's utter clutter by then, :D)_

_Thank you for reviewing, following this story or simply reading and enjoying it so far. It means a lot. _

_So, here it goes -_

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><p><strong><strong><em><strong><strong><strong>Disclaimer:<strong>****_****_The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><strong>Chapter 9 – Dirty Fighting<strong>

They all remembered her from the battle. She had led the elven archers on the battlements, and all had been impressed with the human woman's skill. Still, Shianni wasn't one easy to impress and she didn't get past things easily. Even then, in the middle of the madness, it had hurt a little that it had been a shem, of all things, that who her cousin had entrusted with their lives, while she herself had gone down to more – spectacular – business. Always the show-off, her cousin. Although she couldn't fault the human in the slightest, the way her cousin had discarded them under the command of a shem, who, most likely, had done it all more for the sake of glory than anything, and had no inkling or consideration as to Alienage elves, had irked Shianni. After all, that neither Soris nor herself had the chance to join Kallian in her travels during the Blight had been a whim of fate more than anything else. The fact that this woman seemed to share a sort of unsanctioned dalliance with her cousin didn't help. Shianni wasn't to go easy on the red-headed bard, Blight companion or not.

The said bard towered over them all in their suddenly too-confining hovel. Cloaked and hooded, much like Kallian had been, she almost brushed the upper threshold with the tip of her hood as they entered, even as she kept her head low and her face shrouded. Kallian zoomed to the dining table, settling two bottles of good wine and a satchel stuffed with dried fruit there, while the human lingered in the doorframe, seemingly puzzled over what was next to do. Cyrion spoke first, as it was due, bidding the guest a hearty welcome, pleading she not be too disrupted by this hasty summoning in their humble abode, which he dared humbly hope she would find hospitable enough.

"Master Cyrion, I am at a loss of words. But thank you," came the lilting answer. Then, she removed her hood, and Soris couldn't help but speak the obvious, blowing so silent words towards Shianni that he could barely hear them himself

"By Andraste, she's _blind._"

His words, though, didn't slip past Leliana, as she turned towards him and smiled, of all things.

"Soris, yes? My ears may not be pointy, but they serve me quite all right. I'm glad you're well – or, better than I am, I think, since you can see me whence I cannot."

"Speaking of which, Master Cyrion… - it took Kallian a while to conclude her business earlier, and I took the liberty to linger around here for a bit. I thought, well, since, in my state, the only thing that could give me away as human was my height, I seated myself and, wrapped in my cloak as I was, I'm afraid some people here may have mistaken me for a beggar or the such." Leliana rummaged through her pockets, seeming faintly amused. "Here's what I came up with."

"You – those were our people's – poor people's money!... How could you?" Shianni jumped at the sight of the few silvers and – perhaps – two dozen copper coins that Leliana held.

"What would you have me do? Blow my disguise, invite restless youngsters to punch me senseless, rob me, or Maker-knows what else? It's not like I would keep it to myself." If there was somebody prone to step on already painfully writhed toes just to get the true measure of _how_ they ached exactly, Leliana was most certainly a one. Charming feat, once one got to know just how benign her whole interest in these matters was, but quite annoying otherwise, especially for the unknowing one at the receiving end of such a display of wit.

"I can't say who those people were, those who gave coin to me – for reasons that are most obvious. But, as you say, it's your people's, and I dearly hope I'm not offending if I'm to suggest that maybe it should remain here, in the Alienage." Leliana paused for the effect.

"Take it. It's hard earned money, if I may say so myself," she said at last, her half-way joke being paired with a half-sad smile as she raised her chin in defiance, her face in the light for all of them to see. Nobody dared tell her otherwise, so that was that and the matter settled. Count on Leliana to puzzle everybody just so, and have her way with people in the end, with little or no opposition – even give her family money, without them believing for a moment that she'd done exactly that. As Leliana put the money on the table in a no-nonsense manner, Kallian snorted, clearly amused.

They seated themselves at the long table. Cyrion was, as his due, at the far end, Soris took his seat on the hearth side, while Kallian waited for Shianni to take the other end before settling Leliana and herself on the side across Soris.

The dried meat that Alarith had brought earlier had been put to stove with a mix of ale and flour, and Cyrion had added a bunch of dried vegetables of choice to it. The steaming pot was laid in the middle of the table for everyone to reach, as always, and the stew didn't smell half-bad, either. Kallian made a point of serving everyone herself, starting with her father, and everyone ate quietly for a while.

"So, what news?"Cyrion asked, taking another spoonful of the stew.

"On our way we stopped here and there, in a few inns and taverns. People are disgruntled and impoverished everywhere, but the Blight hasn't spread much north of Denerim."

Kallian agreed.

"That, and we heard that people have not been released from arms. Not a one has returned back home."

"Dare I ask what you make of that?"

"Well, Master Cyrion, stray darkspawn have been spotted everywhere. I wouldn't make much of it yet. Other than that, I _could_ think that maybe the Queen fears foreign invasion, with the weakened state the country is in, but one cannot be sure. Thing is, people are grumbling indeed. Famine is sure to come this year, with no-one home in time for planting. What news here, in Denerim?"

"Can't complain. There's lots of work to be found for the likes of us. People can't afford to be picky these days, and things need to be done. Other than that… Kallian, I don't know if Shianni told you – there are people here in the Alienage who would see her Hahren. We are very proud of her."

"Really? Shianni, you didn't say a word!"

"That's because I don't want to be Hahren. What do I know, the uneducated girl that I am. I'm too young for the such."

"She don't want to, because she wants to marry that Alarith sod!" Soris bludgeoned in.

"Ah?"Kallian arched one eyebrow.

"That's not why... I told you why. I'm too young." Shianni said it pleadingly, as in inviting her cousin to see reason, but her cheeks were flushed enough to give her away.

"Well, Alarith is not from our Alienage" Kallian said on an even tone, as if she meant nothing by it.

"He's a widower, has four kids. He wouldn't dare set his eyes on my sister…"

"Soris, shut up." Kallian snapped. "You're being an arse. Father, what do you think?"

"Well, as things are now, there is no one to sanction a marriage." Cyrion spoke with caution, seemingly trying to tread on middle ground. "We need a Hahren first, and people do trust Shianni's judgement, after what happened with the Tevinters. They followed her in battle. You were here, you saw it."

"I agree. Shianni is strong and determined. By all means, she should be Hahren – when she'll be fifty years old, when she'll have had a good life with a husband and will have raised a houseful of kids – or whatever she sees fit to do with herself until then."

"Who would be fit, then? Would _you _come home and be Hahren, then?" Soris growled, almost.

"I'm a Grey Warden, Soris. I can't come home" Kallian said gently.

"Whatever _that_ means…"

"It means that my duty is with the Wardens… not that I know exactly what that be, seeing that I am the only one in Ferelden. Perhaps getting to the bottom of this new treachery would be a start…" Kallian mused, suddenly oblivious to the matter at hand.

"Or, maybe, you could think of yourself for once, having done more than enough for everyone else?" Leliana had been quiet all the time, but she seemed vaguely annoyed with the topic in general. Kallian snapped.

"Sure. Or, perhaps, I could crawl under a rock and _die._" She realized what she said only after she said it – the look on Leliana's face spoke volumes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." Without thinking, she hugged Leliana and kissed her cheek.

Silence fell at their table. Her cousins were awkwardly trying not to stare at her, Leliana seemed downright hurt, and Father was doing his best to pretend that nothing had happened. Like when Kallian'd been a kid and had embarrassed him unknowingly. Kallian had fought dragons and brood mothers, had honed kings and arls into doing her bidding, yet she could not change things in the slightest for her already misfortune-stricken cousin, no matter how dearly she wished it – and, worse, she'd snapped at Leliana of all people. It was easier to deal with a full-fledged high dragon that with one's family, it seemed. She wasn't ready to let go of the matter still, and she opened her mouth to speak when Leliana's hand reached her own, pleading for silence.

"Wine, master Cyrion? May I?" she didn't wait for an answer as she reached for the glass, which was indeed almost empty, and she started pouring wine, much to everyone's surprise. Four pairs of eyes followed her moves as she faultlessly filled the glass to the brim, intently watching her finger that hovered over the edge without touching the brim of the glass, while the bottle in her left hand danced gracefully up and then down again, without spilling one drop of red liquor. The argument of before had long been forgotten, and Soris almost stuttered when he spoke.

"How did you just _do_ that?"

The purpose of breaking the rugged mood accomplished, Leliana allowed herself a small smile of gratification.

"I listen... Like I said, my ears serve me well."

Cyrion also seemed to have regained his composure.

"We deeply apologize for this uncivil outburst. I'm afraid you have seen us at our worst, and that my nephews have not exactly been forthcoming this evening. These are worrisome times, and I'm afraid they have taken their toll on all of us."

"No harm done, master Cyrion. I understand how you all have your share of trouble here in the Alienage." Although Leliana had spoken in the lightest tone possible, Kallian's her ears caught a discrete undercurrent that showed her what exactly her loved one thought of the entire matter, and she found herself agreeing that perhaps forcing the 'neutral' cousin in the whole argument had been a bit excessive, more so since the whole thing seemed to have been long before decided upon.

"Perhaps I could sing some, lighten the mood?" Leliana offered, and Kallian felt bad about it – she had done too much already for her grumpy, unaccepting family – but Leliana didn't give any signs that she might have thought such herself.

"I'm afraid that we have to refuse, however pleasurable it may sound. It is after curfew, and we'll soon have to worry about being quiet enough not to stir the guards. Which reminds me, Soris, can you put those boards up the windows? If the guards see light or hear voices, or music, for that matter, they won't miss the opportunity to enter and rob us of our food and drink while 'enforcing the curfew' – I do apologize for this." Cyrion said, as a means of explanation.

He hadn't quite finished his word, though, when a loud knock at the door and a harsh voice announced that which he had spoken of.

"City guard, open up!"

There was a commotion, as they all jumped on their feet at once, and then a small moment when no one knew what to do next. Once they decided, though, for a course of action, it was Shianni who opened the door.

"Good evening, sers."

The guards didn't bother to answer that, however, as they pushed Shianni to the side and entered, their boots trotting loudly on the planks of the hovel's floor.

One of them, who seemed to be the head of the patrol, spoke.

"We know for sure that one of you is hoisting weapons. Which one would that be? Come forth, and nothing bad will happen to the others." The guard measured the three elves in sight. Not one of them seemed to be the sort that would smuggle weapons, and he snorted, disgruntled at the prospect of having been sent on a wild goose chase.

"Search the house" he ordered curtly, as he settled into a chair, thoroughly leaning against its back, legs outstretched and arms spread loosely at his sides.

While his men did the searching, he sat there idly, his face betraying nothing else but boredom and the faintest trace of contempt – but that couldn't be made out for sure, seeing that the man kept to obstinately contemplate the ceiling for some abstruse reason, as if what he saw there was of the utmost fascination.

After making a thorough mess of the one chamber in the hovel, the men turned to him with questioning looks.

"Found nothing, eh?" the guard said, still staring at the ceiling. "Hmm." He seemed lost in thought for a while. Then he added quietly, almost like an afterthought, while calmly caressing his beard.

"Too many cobwebs you have here. I'd say you haven't wiped them for a year or so…"

Nobody dared tell him otherwise, and the man went on in the same even voice, like he was speaking to himself.

"So small houses, you folks have. I don't understand how you don't get to dust your ceiling with your hair. I bet there's some cobweb on my helm right now." As for proving his words, the guard removed his helmet and measured it with a critical eye. It was indeed full of dust and had gathered a healthy amount of cobweb.

Soris' eyes darted up without thinking. One could very well trace the moves of the three human guards by following the long marks that their helms left on the shabby ceiling, and Soris' sunken shoulders exuded fear as he fumbled in search of a fourth trace that he couldn't find, apparently.

The guard seemed innervated all of a sudden. He removed his gaze from the ceiling and stared straight to his men. He then spoke briskly, as for trying to infuse some of his newly-found energy to his men.

"Why don't we all sit at this table and have some of this wonderfully flavored stew… mhmm, it even has _meat _in it!.. while our very indulging hosts will nicely explain to us whose supper exactly we're disturbing, seeing that they are three, and their table is set for _five_?"

As his underlings hesitated in joining him, the man's tone became even more cajoling.

"Come, lads. The pretty knife-eared wench will pour us some wine, and we'll all have a good time."

"And bring us some clean glasses, thunder strike you, what're you sitting down there for?" he roared towards Shianni, who was throwing him dirty looks. "Or, you want us to drink wine from your filthy mouth?"

The two guards faked a burst of laughter, obviously frightened and weary of their leader as much as any of the elves and the sound of it muffled a woman's gasp; their leader turned towards them again, with a satisfied grin.

"Now _that_ is the music I want to hear."

He didn't make it clear if it had been the gasp, or the faked laughter that which delighted him so.

Shianni was red in the face, half in anger and half out of sheer embarrassment; she couldn't catch her breath. Cyrion, who had kept silent and unmoving all of the time, brought three glasses from the cupboard and filled them with red wine. He only spoke after he handed one to each guard.

"Good sers, we had guests for dinner, but they left. It is simply that we didn't manage to clean the table just yet. I'm sure that this is not a crime?"

The head of the guards took a sip of wine, seemingly considering the new perspective that had been offered to him. Then, he rose from his chair and coldly cuffed Cyrion's face from both sides, filling his mouth with blood. He seemed satisfied with his work as he settled back in his seat with a sigh.

"What kind of man are you, to be serving wine in your own house?" he said in a low, disapproving, almost pitying voice. "Let the wench do that – it's her thing. I don't understand you people, Maker strike me!"

It wasn't actually by divine intervention that it happened, although one could really read the irony in it. It was of less concern if Leliana had taken offense at the besmirching of the Maker's name more than at the sudden display of violence, as she stepped out of the shadows of the corner where she'd been hiding and smacked the foul guard's nape hard with the pommel of her dagger, sending him unconscious to the floor. Kallian did not dally in seizing the guard nearest to her, and she relished in the crackling sound that the man's neck made when it snapped under her bare hands. The third one was stunned, luckily enough, as he seemed to try hard to understand this new course of events that was utterly unexpected, when Shianni hit him in the head with a bottle of wine. He made a sad view as he slung quietly to the floor, red wine mingling with freshly drawn blood on his face.

They sighed in relief, all except Leliana. She seemed desolated as she buried her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry." Then she straightened her shoulders, facing all of them.

"This was no common guard. We'll have to do something about this, or bad things will happen…"

"Like what?" Shianni asked.

"I don't know. Use your imagination…"


	10. Shuns, Puns and Smoking Barrels

******_******Disclaimer:******_******_The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><strong>Chapter 10 – Shuns, Puns and Smoking Barrels –<strong>

At night, when the smiths' forges and the bakers' ovens stalled, when the spice and fruit vendors closed their stalls and the butchers' shops ceased to sell freshly fried meat and hot mulled wine, and when the daily fretting of the overall wet-dog-stinking populace finally mellowed, Denerim reeked of destruction. The poignant odor much resembling to that inside of a smokehouse lingered in the air, unmistakably reminding one of cured ham – a dish that was not likely to be popular in Denerim for the months to come. Charred roofs were to be seen all around. The river Drakon, which separated Denerim in two, lazily bore its blackened waters from the West Gate to the eastern end of the city, along the Alienage, pouring down in the Denerim Bay by the means of a wide estuary that started to shape from right under the Market Bridge. Here was the place where most of the silt and waste carried by the river's waters were dumped, due to the natural curve of the estuary, and, if the right bank here was filthier than the worst of cesspits as a rule, after the siege the stench and the infection had reached beyond any and all endurable limits. Further down the southern bank were the docks, which didn't add to the health condition of the place, overviewed by a guard tower that was also a makeshift lighthouse, the shimmering light of which could be seen from the bridge, as well as from mostly anywhere in Denerim. The Market Bridge itself had been hastily patched with a haggard lattice of timber beams and boards that seemed hazardous at best; beyond it, lay the northern part of the city, the merchant quarter and the workshops; the parts that had been most heavily struck by the spawn. The cobblestone that had once covered most of the streets had become a precious resource for the reconstruction of houses, and, while it wasn't unusual that whole front walls be entirely rebuilt in that fashion, the streets were covered in black mud, a thick mix of soot, dirt and filth that was reaching knee-high in the back alleys and kept rising, owing to the acid rain that had never quite stopped pouring from above altogether. The lasting shadow that the Blight had left in its wake was a kind host to thugs and scavengers of all kinds, who had moved in and settled, set foot and conquered, newcomers from the lesser parts of town as they were. Veiled within the darkness' bosom, the derelict houses around the marketplace had sheltered them well; the debris there held loot for everybody even a month and a fortnight after that which had struck them down.

It was these thieves and scavengers that Kallian was putting faith in to get things pushed in the right direction. She snuck closely to the walls, moving unseen and quiet through the Market District, noticeable only by the surprised gasps and hurried whispers she left in her wake. In each and every corner where these poor souls had gathered, snugly crammed into one another for heat, a single silver coin was thrown to drop out of the blue, creating commotion and stirring in their midst. The stirring became quarrelling, and the quarreling soon became brawling, such as, when Kallian made her way further, she left them all in a state of bewildered uproar. Then, a few words were whispered aside by hooded messengers who shook their heads knowledgeably, and a rumor grew as the hope-giving words stuck to everyone's lips, rising as the tide and pushing the mob out of their dens and lean-tos onto the Calenhad Bridge, straight on their way to the Royal Palace.

It was pitch-black, the darkness of the thoroughly clouded sky that hadn't cleared for a month and a half menacingly looming over the silent streets. The houses and estates here, in the Palace District, were quartered by shy inhabitants, reluctant to make proof that they were inside living, breathing, and perhaps having dinner in a quiet and discreet manner, wary not to attract unwelcome attention. Life was hard in Denerim, after a fashion, even for those who _had _something to lay on the dinner table, and none was too fond of making unwilling invitations to other denizens by being too blatant about their relative fortunate situation. That must have been a reason as good as any for not a one of these respectable denizens to do so much as to at least peak out of their windows when an blasting boom roared in one of the lesser alleys right behind the royal palace; nor did they do so as the noise of clanking weapons reached their cozy dining-rooms and chambers right before midnight. There was one thing that got them all out and watching, though, just before the guards showed up to restore order – the lone, shrill, voice of a woman, calling the battlecry that was still fresh in the minds of them all –

"For the Grey Wardens!"

All those who got out of their houses or jumped at the windows gnawed by curiosity could well see the sea of hungry men, women and children in rags that kept pouring from the northern side. Otherwise, the things happening right in front of their houses were not at all clear, except for the unmistakable roar of fighting; weapons clashed and shouting rose into the shriveling mist of the alley, but nobody seemed to know who or what they were fighting for - or against, for that matter.

Had anyone been watching only moments before and had they been in position to see, they would have had noticed the explosion of two barrels filled with oil to the brim in the apparently empty street; they would have had wondered at the three armored men that had jumped on their feet howling in horror with their undergarments ablaze, right in the middle of the fire, in the place that had seemed empty only a second before; they would have had seen a lithe elven woman clad only in shift and trews snatching a sword from one of the men and thrusting it deep in his shoulder, with the Warden battlecry on her lips, in the exact moment when the other end of the alley had been filling with people. Not in the least, the hypothetic witness would have had fallen back in awe of the savagery of the mob as it engulfed the scuffling group entirely and would have had melted in the surroundings to save their hide.

The city guard entered the street then, at about the same time as a dozen knights from the palace, led by Ser Cauthrien, emerged from around the corner. Some of the clearer heads may have noticed that a couple of cloaked rogues slipped away from the roaring mob, but none would be as bold as to claim that for sure in the aftermath. A voice from the back screamed -

"Look, the Warden!"

- and all heads turned towards the roofs following the pointing hand to see, but the figure that crept away was too far, too fast, and the darkness too thick for anybody to actually recognize her spot-on. The knights hacked and smashed their path through the crowd with the thick of their swords, and it took them only a few minutes to quiet the daring few who were stripping three fallen soldiers of their remaining pieces of armor, which apparently bore the signs of the Maric's Shield. Cauthrien herself kneeled over their bodies, stared at their faces and frowned. Then, as she rose, she snared the man closest to her by the collar.

"Tell me, what did you see?"

The man seemed beyond himself with fear as he stuttered -

"N-n-nobody…"

"What did you see." Cauthrien hissed ominously, oblivious to the question mark.

"S-s-sorry, ser…"

"You're useless to me!" She snarled, heaving the man back in the crowd. "Anybody seen _any_thing?"

"The Warden!" a female voice shouted from the crowd. "There, where you stand!"

"I saw the Warden too!"

"The Warden! The Warden!"

Cauthrien wasn't listening anymore, hurriedly making way with her shoulders towards the place where she heard the first shouting.

"Who spoke?"

"She did." One man said and withdrew to the side, pointing over his shoulder to the left. But there were only a couple of men standing there, and an old woman, whose back was so bent by age that she most surely couldn't see a thing from where she stood. Cauthrien measured the crowd spitefully. There was not a one in their midst that could point her in the right direction. She turned to leave, her shoulders sinking slightly, when a tug on her forearm stopped her in mid-step.

"Help an old woman out of this crowd, please? Ser? I am blind." The old woman spoke with a trembling voice, and something was off about the way she uttered the words, like she had a horribly deformed jaw or lots of stones in her mouth. Cauthrien wasn't too eager to see the likely warps and alterations on the woman's face, especially after getting a glimpse of what she thought to be an empty eye-socket; she took pity of the poor soul, though, and grabbed her arm with a sigh, guiding her out of the pushing mob. The old woman thanked her and took her leave, and, as she took the knight's hand in a gesture of recognition, Cauthrien had the distinct impression that something was off – the woman's hand didn't feel elderly at all; more so, as the sleek, youthful fingers slipped a small piece of parchment in her palm. The mighty knight leaned on the closest wall for support and unfolded the parchment to read. This was all too confusing and obviously a stunt on the heads of them all – as she read the short note, her brow knitted into a fully-fledged frown, her mystification painted on her face for all to see. To make things worse, the captain of the city guard was in the back too, with his men, and he headed straight to her refuge as soon he spotted her.

"Ser Cauthrien?"

"Captain Kylon. Something you need?"

"Have – have you seen her?"

"The Warden is dead, captain. I have seen her companion taking her body away from the camp. You'd better concern yourself with setting this place to order." She tucked the piece of parchment in her glove for safe-keeping, barked a few orders to her knights, who were not to let anybody leave before they'd release every bit of information, and left in stride. There was nothing more she could do there before the small alley was cleared.

The Royal Palace stood high and mighty on the right bank of the River Drakon, like always. Although its stone walls were blackened and burnt, and big blotches of darken matter still smeared the best part of the piers, as no one had dared to touch such foulness charred as it had been, its halls, chambers and towers bore little or no signs of destruction; no darkspawn had lived to see the Palace inside during the siege. The desolation that roamed the empty halls of the ground floor had more to do with the army of refugees that had been sheltered there than with anything else. It would have been too much to demand from the more than two hundred souls that had stayed there for the most of one week not to touch anything, and though the austere decoration had never been much by a noble's standards, the few tapestries and pieces of armor in display must have been more than appealing for most – so it was, that when the refugees had left back for their homes, they had left nothing but their own mess behind. Most of the said mess had been cleaned and cleared; the broken armor stands and the shattered display cases – the inanimate witnesses of the damage that had taken place – had been left in place; the muscle power required to remove them must have been more useful somewhere else. For the few guards left behind to watch over the whole mess, though, it was clear that all that was left had but little importance. There was not much more anyone could hope to acquire in those barren halls.

Not the same could be said of the upper floor, altogether. With few exceptions, the first floor would have been buzzing with knights and elite soldiers, as most of it was the actual home of the Maric's Shield. Other than that, here was the Great Hall, where the Landsmeets took place, and the throne room, which was smaller and generally used for the less formal meetings and audiences of the Crown. The grey shadows of the somber walls lent the place an air of utter desolation, much reminding of the mess downstairs. As the good knights had been hauled in the street by the commotion, only a handful of them were guarding the empty corridors, still in their posts as bricks, and just barely more animate. If they noticed the quick shadow that passed them by at all, they gave it little attention.

Above of it all, one could find the private quarters of the King and Queen, and the ambassador suits - suits for the honored guests that protocol demanded be hosted in the royal palace. Here, too, the walls had been stripped of garments, and the display cases emptied, but, clearly, all of it had been the work of much more careful hands. The good were carefully stashed in boxes, like they were prepared for being delivered somewhere; the boxes were carefully stacked on one side of the narrow corridor that led to Anora's chambers, piled up to the ceiling. There were no guards on this floor. A small shadowy figure crept along the piles of boxes, treading carefully, but brisk with determination, through the deserted corridor. One door opened, and then closed with a soft thump, and it all went quiet again for a while.

Slowly revealing her face from the hood, Kallian massaged her temples thoroughly; it had been a long night, and it was far from being over. Then, she took a good look around, and set to work.

Anora's workroom was as bare as the rest of the building. White traces were left on the walls marking the places where tapestries used to be, and a scarcely furnished cabinet was host only to the Great Sigil, two bars of wax and a couple of cheap quills, among numerous patches where the traces of missing objects were clearly imprinted in the dust. The writing table was crammed with blank vellums and recent unopened reports, but these didn't catch much attention from the hurried visitor. She perused the writs quickly, lingering for a bit to read a scribbled note that may have been a draft of an order to Cauthrien. The note said to remove all valuables in the Palace, except for those in the Great Hall and in the Throne Room, and sell them as fast as possible – with the exception of the painted likenesses of the kings and queens of the house Theirin, and that of teyrn Loghain. Then, a willful hand had cut over Loghain's name with a single line. Anora had been cross with her father, it seemed – or, the Crown's finances were in dire straits, indeed. Kallian couldn't but acknowledge her determination; the Queen may have had shown malevolence towards her and her companions, but she seemed to care more for her people's well-being than her own comfort – after all she'd heard in the Alienage about the reconstruction of Denerim, Kallian had no doubt as to where the money from the royal coffers were spent.

Her nimble fingers made little work of the drawer's lock, which sprung open in a whim. There were stacks of official letters and reports too, but not the kind that Kallian was looking for. In all likeliness, the drawer of the writing table was not a secure enough spot to stash papers used for blackmail or the such. The bare walls held little chance to host a secret cache, and the credenza had no locks whatsoever. Kallian drew the Queen's chair and sunk in it with a sigh. The cushion was a bit uncomfortable, although it had seemed thick and welcoming enough at first. That was odd enough to get Kallian back on her feet to investigate, which she did. It was not without satisfaction either, as she found after a bit of prodding that indeed the thin layer of soft wool barely concealed a flat casket underneath it. Kallian snorted in silent amusement – to be literally sitting on Ferelden's secrets of the state like that, one had to be a royal arse, it seemed. The box was light, but large enough not to be easily concealed under one's cloak; however, picking the lock was far beyond Kallian's abilities, so she tugged it under, hoping that Leliana's skills were not hindered much by her condition.

The next several hours that Kallian spent with Leliana, however, were on the top of a roof that had a particularly good view on the West Gate. It was freezing cold, and the drizzly rain did nothing for the mood of a sleep-deprived, worn-out and drained Warden. The murky fog that was rising from the River Drakon crawled up the road ahead, engulfing the stables outside the city walls and muffling the sounds of waking workers. A steep rooftop in early spring was not the most comfortable of places, and the hours of keeping still and quiet had been long enough, not to count the unrelenting toil of the first part of the night. They were both huddled underneath the same woolen cloak, and it had helped a little; however soaked the blasted thing had become, it was still better than hours of endless rain pouring down directly on one's skin. Both their chins rose above the dented ridge of the slate roof, resting against one bent forearm, their leather gloves soaking wet. Occasionally, one of them would throw an arm around the other's shoulders, as comforting as it brought warmth to both. Both stiff and sore, each would try and quietly stretch a limb every now and then, careful not to disrupt the precariously comfortable position that the other seemed to have found – then the other would move, making way for another wave of cold underneath the dripping cloak – and then both would gather into one another for heat, brittle and shivering alike. Kallian was grateful that Leliana sat with her during this early morning vigil.

Their legs were thoroughly entangled, and that helped, but below their thighs and knees, the boots were too thick to let the warmth through. Kallian shifted and waggled her already numb toes, and a loose slate clanked menacingly.

"I could use a swig of White Shear right now…" she whispered to the wind.

Leliana chuckled.

"Me too. But it is not befitting to walk the streets in the early morning stinking like a brewery. More so in the Chantry, that would be - indecorous."

"Hmm."

Kallian stifled a yawn and drew closer to Leliana's body heat. Quiet fell again for a while, and the particular kind of torpor usual to mornings that followed sleepless nights came with it. Kallian spoke again, trying to keep sleep at bay.

"Why did you want to go back there?"

Leliana's brow was hidden in the crook of her arm. Due to her own weariness, perhaps, but she _had_ grown of late into this habit of not exactly facing someone when she spoke - the habit of a blind woman, as Kallian was painfully reminded.

"Well… Somebody has to rein a crowd… lest they want the poor guys to forget why they're there, no?"

"You're mean."

"Non. Well, maybe a bit. You know it's true. And, I had fun."

Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. Kallian twitched her ears – soon, the working people of Denerim would start stirring and waking, walking down the muddy streets. There was not much time left.

"Still, that note to Cauthrien? Isn't that a bit too much?" Kallian asked again, after a while. She knew there was no reason to be bothered – except maybe that Leliana had put herself at so much risk, or that they had made a mockery of a loyal knight, who, if she didn't particularly like, she did at least respect and trust as honourable.

"I've yet to make a bard out of you… This is the way things are done. Believe me. What is the worst that can happen? Anora finding out that you're alive? She already knows that, at least now she will know to expect some retaliation if she strikes at you again, no? …Oh, and I thought you _liked_ Cauthrien." Leliana added like an afterthought.

"Right. I actually did, up until Fort Drakon – wait – not in _that _way…"

Leliana stifled a giggle.

"Now, I like her – not _quite_ as much – but much in the fashion that you like, say, Clarice Cousland." Kallian said, slightly annoyed.

"Oh. _That."_

Leliana's mirth vanished without trace, and Kallian knew she'd crossed the invisible line to – _those_ things they never talked about.

"I don't loathe her overly much, though. Poor thing, it must be hard for her to find herself _changed_ like that. I think I forgave her already." Leliana said and, though her strained tone put some finality to her words, Kallian shifted on the spot and tried to add something, but she didn't quite get the time to do so. The loose slate under her foot creaked again.

"You should stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Prying. Trying to get me to talk about it. Expecting me to break at every corner. That kind of thing."

"I'm not – it's just –"

"The Maker gives and the Maker takes it away. That's all there is to it."

That got Kallian pretty angry. The Maker's will wasn't the answer for everything. And, Leliana was bound to know better than that. She snapped.

"Stop acting like it's some kind of righteous punishment from the Maker himself!"

"And you should stop talking about things that you don't know!..."

Now, that was unexpected. She must have struck a very sensitive nerve. Kallian turned to face Leliana and pulled her into the closest embrace possible, given the circumstances. Leliana's cheek was wet, and beads of water dropped from Leliana's hair on her lips as she whispered in her ear.

"You didn't _deserve _it."

"You don't know any of it…" the answer came mildly and resigned.

"Shh." Kallian reached to kiss her, and she did. The loose slate, unfortunately, chose that exact moment to fall from the roof.

Leliana pulled out from the embrace at once.

"Hear that?"

A man was getting out of the house below, hoofing and swearing. Somehow Kallian doubted Leliana had meant hearing that.

"What?"

"Hooves."

The man below had apparently spotted them, as he started waving a particularly nasty-looking scythe.

"You! Get down from my roof!"

Kallian was too preoccupied with properly looking at the lone rider that had just left Denerim through the Western Gate. She got a glimpse of the Maric's Shield coat-of-arms, and she deemed it a sufficient proof.

"There we are. Cauthrien's messenger has left town."

Only then she turned her attention to the annoyed owner of the house.

"Oy! Don't frett. We're off!..." –she shouted, and in the next moment both her and Leliana were down and over the shabby fence, running full-speed. She caught the man's disappointed grunt before taking the first turn.

"Blasted rogues…"

Kallian snickered.

They stopped only at the Chantry gates, to catch their breath and smooth their clothes. Leliana smiled.

"Now, let's make the official appearance"

Then, they entered.

The Chantry was quite empty at that early hour; only one young initiate was treading the halls from one end to another, running some errands, apparently. Kallian stopped her, doing her best to look as friendly as possible, and spoke quickly.

"My friend here would have a message to write to the Revered Mother Dorotheea in Val Royeaux, if you would be so kind to help her with that. And I am looking for Sister Justine, to inquire upon some ancient manuscripts that I gave to her a while ago…"

"Of course. Your friend may come with me."

As Leliana left with the sister, Kallian listened to her steps fading away, muffled along the side corridor. The long night was coming to an end. As she massaged her temples lost in thoughts, only barely awake, she almost missed the silhouette that was coming her way.

"Sister Justine."

"Maker bless you! Warden, you're alive!..."

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><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> So, this comes after more than a month... Phew! Winter holidays aside, I really took my time with this one... In my defense, I had absolutely no idea what this chapter would contain; when I wrote the last line of the previous chapter - the "use your imagination" one - it was as much a challenge for me as for any of you who read this. Well, this is it; I apologize for the delayed update, and hope you enjoyed this little bit of adventuring here.

LionHeart, I'm sorry that I didn't find the time (read 'strength/inspiration') to rewrite the dialogues - and other faulty parts - in the previous chapter(s). I tried to keep the dialogue cleaner in this one, though. Thank you again for your level-headed review. Also, this goes to you all who read, fav'ed, or simply enjoyed this story so far :).


	11. Cause and Consequence

AN: First and foremost, I know that this story seemed to have been abandoned in a corner. It is not so; only, real life (and real death, and sickness in the family, plus a PhD that doesn't seem to come to an end) got to me and made me quite forget an important lesson - that one should stick to those things that bring a bit of joy and lighten the mood a little, especially during dark times. It's what keeps us going, and keeps us human (and helps us **not **get excessively morose when the others are in the exactly same deep - pile of - and depend on us). Although, indeed, this simple fact is so easy to forget when in the middle of it all. Not an excuse, just - well.

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><p>I do remind you that I deeply appreciate reviews, constructive critics and discussions, and I thank you all who read, reviewed, followed or simply enjoyed this story so far. Which, at this point, stands thus:<p>

After Loghain killed the Archdemon, Queen Anora seized Wynne and Leliana, sending one to Aeonar, under Templar custody, and the other to be imprisoned in Highever. Leliana escaped her escort only to run into the hands of the terrible Clarice Cousland, where Kallian, Zev and Morrigan found her bloodied, blinded and bound in irons. After an even, if savage, fight, CLarice and Kallian managed some kind of truce, and the party removed their wounded friend from Clarice's camp.

Not willing to give up Wynne either, the four separated and left to investigate the two possible places that could hold clues about the location of the mages prison: Morrigan and Zevran went to the Circle, while Kallian, Leliana and Con the dog left to Denerim, seeking to infiltrate the Chantry. As Kallian paid a visit to her family, she unknowingly put all of them in danger: a couple of overzealous guards interrupted the family dinner, which lasted long after curfew.

Thinking that perhaps they'd been the cause for the impromptu visit, Kallian and Leliana put up a huge diversion, in order to get rid of the said guards in a place and in a manner that made the deed impossible to be traced back to Cyrion's house - also using the opportunity to breach inside the Royal Palace, in an attempt to retrieve whatever incriminating papers Anora could have on Leliana.

After making sure that Cauthrien's report over the night's events had already left, bearing only the news that they wanted it to contain, Kallian revealed herself to sister Justine in the Denerim Chantry.

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><p><em>Disclaimer: Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me.<em>

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><p><strong>Chapter 11 – Cause and Consequence<strong>

_They are riding west. The foul weather eased as they left Denerim behind, and the sun feels nice between the blades of one's shoulders. They are heading for the Circle, and, although there's no news from Morrigan, it's good to be on the road while everyone is looking for them in Denerim. And, it's nice and warm, for a change. On the outside._

_On the inside, well. It's been a bit tiring, lately, and a bit too dark. The tiny glitter of hope that perhaps Kallian's cousin might have kept some of Andraste's ashes, that the ashes would make her whole again and give her back the light, is gone, too. She is tired. She would – just for a bit – let herself be the girl that she was a long time ago and cry. Except, she has no tears. She would let herself go, just the once. All that happened has been a bit much, even for a surviving girl such as herself. She would go and hide, seek succor, in a place like the Chantry of Denerim maybe, where she knows every room and garden path like the back of her hand - like she knows the words of the Chant. She knows all the words, in Fereldan as well as in Orlesian, backwards and forth - and she'd sing it better this time. She wouldn't try and tempt the Maker again by asking impious proof, she wouldn't ask herself again whether the words of the Chant are more important than its substance, or whether words in general are more or less than their designated meaning. She'd be nice, this time, if only they would let her rest. Except, she's never been a nice girl to begin with. And, there is Kallian._

_They stopped for the day, and Kallian is building a fire. Kallian is filling a pot with water; Kallian is making some tea; elfroot, judging by the scent of it. Kallian doesn't say a word; Kallian is simply there, at an arm's distance, careful, watching. When she reaches to pour herself some tea, Kallian knows better than to offer; although, surely, the fact that she spilled some over the brim of the cup doesn't go unnoticed. She is too tired to pour properly, but _Leliana's_ years of training won't allow her to let go of the cup as the hot brew burns her fingers. She is still resilient enough to pain. Con's muzzle tugs at her fingers, and he lays his head in her lap. He knows when to intervene, the mutt. Could as well be a bard, the way he can squeeze a smile out of people._

_She reaches for her lute. As her fingers find the familiar strings, the darkness recedes. It has been less praying, more playing, of late. Whatever works best. With the evening sun warming her shoulders, she can imagine the exact hue of yellow honey that soaks the fresh green leaves; it's dripping down from the song of birds, and rising up from the fragrant moist in the grass. It tastes a little bitter in the elfroot tea, but it is there, shiny, soothing, nevertheless. The tune ads to it, making the picture whole._

_Kallian rummages through the leaves of a book. _

"_So, what would you have me read to-nite?"_

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><p>Evenings in Redcliffe were easy on the eye and pleasantly warm in spring, especially if one was out in the courtyard for sword practice among the fragrant early blossoms of elfroot and Andraste's grace. Alistair King of Ferelden was such a one, and, while the reason that had driven him out there had been a rather less fortunate series of events, his mood was light enough as he charged full of zeal at the straw mats that made his target. Sun burned through the pauldrons of the mismatched veridium set of armor that he used in the practice yard lately, signaling that they'd sustained quite their – and his – limit of exposure, and the sweat thoroughly collected underneath was ought to bring his hours of freedom to an end.<p>

When the rooster'd first called the break of dawn, Alistair had already been up and about. He'd sneaked out of his royal bedroom, clad only in shift and trews, barefoot, with his doublet tucked underarm, like an illicit lover removing himself out of his paramour's chambers – and the irony had not been lost on him as he'd gone straight to the armory, where he'd donned some red steel greaves, a pair of light black boots, an old battered veridium plate over his doublet and steel gauntlets over the leather training gloves. As he'd hit the straw matt in the yard for the first time that morning, the anger that had sent him out of bed that early had started cooling off, so that a whole day spent outside having at it had left him only with a slight annoyance, that he could easily subdue.

Or, perhaps not. Every time he decided he'd worked enough, his temper rose again, giving him new strength to hit and bash and shout war cries that made the windows clatter. The night before, Erlina had showed up, wearing a lace gown and a smirk on her face, _cooing_ at his door. Alistair felt his temple pulsing each time he remembered what she'd said and how she'd said it – and the fact that it was late in the day and he was dead-tired changed nothing of it. He bashed into the straw matt with the full of his shield as he pitched his voice in a peevish mimic of Erlina's most sultry voice. "Oh, Majestee, my mistress thought you may enjoy – _hum_…" – "…the company of an _Orlesian_ woman… "- and the _nerve_ that had conveyed that undue emphasis on the word Orlesian… how dared she? "No." he'd said curtly then. Now, he added in his normal tone "I am enjoying this more", as he was hitting the mock target again, curtly, once and twice, with the flat of his blade. He pitched his voice again, genuinely purring - "If I may, your Majestee, perhaps to help you – _hum_ – get more acquainted with your – _hum" -_ he was pummeling the dummy's head into nothingness – "…intimate self, yes?" He addressed the already maimed bundle of dirty straw one last finishing blow. "I am quite _acquainted_ with my intimate self, thank you ever so much." Finally satisfied with the day's work, he sheathed his sword and saluted the scraps of the dummy with a curt bow.

He would have entered the castle, his battle with his nerves won at last, if it hadn't been for the odd commotion over the battlements.

'Rider for the Queen!' there was a shout, and then another, in reply, 'Rider for the Queen, letting through!'

The great gate shrieked and opened.

Rider for the _Queen_ – huh, Alistair scowled. It was time to act the _King_.

"Ho there! What message?"

The rider drew near. With his hood off, he looked very much the boy, maybe sixteen springs. He held his head high, no doubt infused with enough pride as it was suiting with the important task at hand.

"I'm sorry, ser, it's for the Queen's hand only."

"Give it to us." Alistair replied, in his primmest royal voice. "Or, you could at least un-horse yourself and properly salute your King" he added, half annoyed and half amused at the blank expression of the boy. Right after, though, Alistair found himself stung by a pang of guilt of a flavor totally new to him, as the boy went pale with awe when handing him the scroll sealed with the Maric's Shield coat of arms with a trembling hand. Aww. Frightening the lad like that had not been anywhere _close_ to his intention.

"Here you are, ser, -er, your Majesty, I mean – "

"Thank you. What's your name, squire?"

"Pick, ser – your Majesty – but I'm no squire, ser. Only a messenger, ser."

"You're surprisingly loyal for a messenger. Say – have you been to Ostagar?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

The page was shifting on his feet, visibly puzzled by all the unexpected attention. But Alistair wasn't ready to let him go that easily, now that he'd recognized the poor boy that Kallian had tricked into giving away the sword he'd been carrying. The lad had been to Ostagar, and that meant something to the young king. Even moreso, as fate appeared to have brought the elf that Kallian had been so cruel towards in his path again, it seemed only fair to Alistair to provide some sort of compensation. But, what would that be? He was clad in his training armor and he had no gold upon himself.

"Here, lad." Alistair fumbled to remove his gauntlets and gloves, and reached for one of the two golden rings that adorned his fingers. "Go get some food and rest."

Justice being served, Alistair trotted inside, cheerful beside himself. The parchment that he'd rightly seized in such a dignified manner burned his fingers, however, and curiosity got the better of him on the staircase, somewhere in mid-distance to the second floor, where he stopped to read it, leaning against one of the coarse stone walls. The letter was from ser Cauthrien, and it bore some extraordinary news.

"_Your Majesty,_

_I am dread to report an incident that took place during the night of 18th of Molioris at the Royal Palace._

_The said incident took place under my command and under my vigilance, the failure of which I am to be accounted for, as well as for the dishonor that goes with: one individual has broken into the Palace during the night and has gotten away unhindered. _

_But, with your will, your Majesty, I shall try and describe the night's events to the best of my knowledge, as resulted from the investigation._

_On the night of the 18th, around midnight, three warriors armed and equipped, bearing the Maric's Shield coat of arms, walked into a wire-and barrel trap in front of the Royal Palace. It was presumed that, these three were escorting a prisoner towards Fort Drakon. It may be that they were attacked right after the explosion by forces unknown, although the eye witnesses that I could find do not agree on the particulars. More of a certainty is that the three were beaten to death by the crowd that had miraculously gathered at that exact moment in front of the Palace, on the alleged reason that the three had detained the Warden herself. This stands consistent with the wounds we found upon them – none of the burns and the blade cuts were serious enough as to provoke death, but they had sustained such injuries by beating. _

_None of the witnesses we retained can positively affirm that they had actually seen the Warden, although at first mostly all of them demanded that it had been so. _

_Whether any of what I wrote above is true, or none of it, is of less importance. The fact is that our vigilance slipped and all of us that were on guard duty that night went out in the street to restore order. _

_It was during this time that the Palace was broken into, and several locked chambers searched, although no valuables were taken. This, of course, makes the whole of the events outside an obvious diversion. The fact that I can't seem to identify the three dead warriors by their name - or as being part of Maric's Shield - comes as a confirmation, too. The one thing that seems to me not to add up, though, is the use of the Warden's name. Whoever plotted this elaborate hoax went as far as trying to convince me in person that the Warden lives, an attempt that I cannot possibly see the purpose of. I have been slipped a note, which I attach hereby, presumably written by none other than the Warden herself."_

The small note had slipped down on the stairs while Alistair was reading, so he had to go down a few steps to retrieve it. Alistair's hand trembled slightly. The writing was Kallian's, no doubt about it, with those scrawny 'm's and 'n's and with the tormented 'b's and 'g's and 'f's scratching the paper almost all the way through to the other side – no-one who'd learned their letters in a proper manner could have faked it. It read – '_Cauthrien, I am alive. I have reason to believe that people in power wish me ill. Please, keep this in confidence. Trust me, as you did before. Kallian'_

As he finished reading, Alistair took a deep breath and leant into the staircase wall for support. His mind was moving slow. He could vouch for Kallian's handwriting. That meant that Cauthrien was wrong, and Kallian was alive. It meant that Leliana was innocent. Leliana had killed nobody; he'd known it in his heart all the time; she was too sweet a being to do a thing like that. He had to let everybody know. Paying heed to nothing else around him, he darted up the stairs and into Anora's chambers, ready to voice his enthusiasm.

As he entered the room, two things stopped him in mid-step, however.

The first one was Erlina's unwelcome presence, whose merrily giggling in a corner of the room was apparently indispensable for Anora to have a proper working day – or evening. The second was the sudden realization of the fact that the ring he'd given Pick the messenger had been his wedding ring.

He must have looked plain awkward, standing stun in the doorstep as he was, as Anora called at him in her most shrill voice.

"Alistair. Don't just stand there, say something. What is it?"

That was bad. When he'd become 'Alistair' in Anora's speech, it usually meant that he'd done something wrong, and that Anora was cross with him. Well, he _was_ acting like a boy, truth be said. Alistair braced himself and, carefully, with his left hand securely hidden behind his back, he approached Anora's desk and offered Cauthrien's report from a _safe_ _distance_, gingerly holding it from one end in his right.

"Here. This arrived just now from Denerim with a rider."

"Oh? Give it over."

Anora started to frown long before reaching the middle of the letter, and by the end of it she appeared positively flustered.

"This is unexpected. To say the least." She motioned curtly to Erlina to take the parchment.

"Well?" Alistair was shifting nervously.

"Well, what?"

"Well. You told me that Kallian was dead, that Leliana slew her during the battle." Alistair said, carefully.

"You don't think she is alive, now, do you?"

"Who? Kallian, or Leliana?" Alistair said, a little harsher that he'd intended. He opened Kallian's note again. "'People in power wish me ill…' - this could be you, my dear, could it not?"

"Oh? You believe that nonsense?"

"It is her writing."

Anora seemed vaguely annoyed with his insistence.

"Alistair." Here it was, 'Alistair', again… "Your dear bard stabbed the warden in the guts with a poisoned blade. She is dead. We all witnessed her faithful Qunari watchdog carrying her corpse to the woods."

"How do you know? I mean, it must have been madness there. How could your people tell one wound from another? How could they tell?" Alistair's temper was rising quickly, and he spoke before realizing what Anora had just said. They had _seen_ Kallian die. Cauthrien too.

He had the distinct impression that something quite crucial was eluding him. He wasn't even sure that he recognized Kallian's writing any more. He poured himself a glass of wine and took a gulp to calm his nerves. By all accounts, he wasn't among friends here. Still, there was something in Anora's discourse that rang true.

"This is a hoax, my King. You must not believe. To me, this all seems to be the work of bards. Besides entering the palace, they created turmoil and spread bad rumors among our people. We must to Denerim, and soon."

Alistair took another gulp from his glass. A certain idea was beginning to slowly unravel in his head.

"You go to Denerim. I must see Leliana."

"You should come to Denerim with me. People must see us together."

"No. Where is Leliana? Have you killed her too?"

Anora's head jerked up, like she'd just swallowed a stick.

"I don't like your choice of words, my King. If you mean to imply that I have a hand in the Warden's death, you may wish to think again. As for your _precious_ bard – yes, it was impossible to not notice your _insultingly_ persistent infatuation with her – I have proof of her transgressions. Here."

The box that Anora produced from her drawer was indeed full of rolled pieces of parchment, of the sort that may've had spent some time wrapped in a small cylinder, such as the ones attached to the legs of messenger birds. They were sparse in Ferelden and expensive to keep, but Alistair remembered that the Chantry used to have a few – although it had always a bit of a secret, as they were not supposed to be used for mundane purposes. In Orlais, though, that must have been an altogether different matter.

"What is this?"

"Your bard had betrayed you all along. This is what we found among her belongings."

He rummaged through the small curled notes and picked one at random.

"_Chere Leliana. Je suis heureuse de savoir que vous continuez sur l'oeuvre du Créateur, et je me réjouis de votre nouvelle amitie avec la Garde des ombres. Je vous souhaite toute la joie, et que le Créateur veille sur vous et votre entreprise.D."_

At Alistair's puzzled expression, Anora waved her hand impatiently.

"Yes, yes. I'm aware they're in Orlesian. Luckily, Erlina, here, can help us with that."

"Well, what does it say?" Alistair offered the note, but Erlina shook her head.

"Erlina can't read, Alistair. You'll have to read it to her…"

"What?! You want me to try and read… this?!"

"Yes. This is how we've done it, Erlina and I."

"Oh, fine then… ehm, Erlina, how would you translate … "hjuro-uz"..?

"I'm sorry, ser, I don't understand, heroes, perhaps?"

"I'm not sure… it's spelled very differently… how about… let's see… "a-mi-ty"?

"That may be "amitie", it means friendship."

"Oh. And "gard-e"?"

" "Garder" means to guard. "Garde des ombres" is the name for the Grey Wardens in Orlesian. It could mean either."

"That makes sense…"

Anora was showing signs of impatience.

"Try this one."

The note that she produced was thoroughly crumpled and stained, as if with tears, and very worn out at the corners, as if someone had read it, crumpled it, and then read it again and again. It was very short.

"Allright. … "gard-e" means Warden, Archie-Demon is the Archdemon… what does "tahr" mean?"

Erlina tried to say something, but Anora wouldn't let her.

"We spent lots of time on that one, but Erlina cannot think of any other word than "kill" – how do you pronounce it, again, Erlina?"

"_Tuer_."

"I'm still not convinced. I'll go speak to her."

"Alistair, face it. She was spying on you. Maker knows what she wrote to this mysterious D - about you, about Ferelden, about us all. There is "kill"and "Warden" in the same note. She came willingly when I showed this note to her."

"Have you questioned her upon it?"

"Of course not. She's a bard, my King. She could say anything in her defense, and, more likely than not, make all of us believe it, too."

"No matter." Resolution grew within Alistair as he spoke. He gathered all the notes and put them back in the box. Hopefully, the fact that he retained this last one could pass unnoticed, as he stashed it together with Kallian's in his gauntlet. Then, he put both his hands on Anora's writing table, in a final manner. "By all means, you and Erlina should go to Denerim, see what all this attack on the Palace is about. But I must speak to her. So, for the last time, please tell me: where are you keeping Leliana?"

"Highever." Anora said, thoroughly massaging her brow.

The meeting was over. Alistair drank the last of his wine and left the glass on the desk.

"Highever it is, then."

Then he turned to go.

As Alistair walked away down the corridor, Erlina spoke.

"Milady, have you noticed? His Majesty was missing his wedding ring. I hope there is no secret meaning to it."


	12. All the King's Men

_Disclaimer: Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><strong>Chapter 12 – All the King's Men<strong>

In no more than a watch's time, Alistair gathered a party of six, two of which were of the Maric's Shield, part of Anora's personal guard, one was a knight of Eamon's who had volunteered, and three were men-at-arms from the castle guard, quite green, but eager to prove themselves. Apart from those, there were three squires armed with bows and shortswords and a cook – Anora had insisted that he took one with – who rode the first of the four mules.

On the 27th of Molioris, at the break of dawn, the royal company was on its way. Alistair king of Ferelden rode out from the Redcliffe castle in front of his men. They carried no banners and no insignia. The king was clad in an inconspicuous veridium mail, and he mounted a roan palfrey, mild-tempered but quick of pace, the kind that, while looking far less conspicuous than those of the other knights, was the kind of horse levelheaded enough to get one past the darkspawn they could meet ahead without making too much fuss about it. The rest of the party were also lightly equipped; even ser Kirn, Arl Eamon's knight, had received clear orders not to bring with more than one set of mails. Nor had any of them anything more to sleep on than their bedrolls, and each carried only one keg of ale and one small sack of traveler's loaf; they were to feed on game and the fruits of the land. The company was merry and eager, but the king was weary of what he could learn on the way.

They rode unhindered for four days' time, with the benefit of the sunny weather and of the well-kept routes, so that in the fifth day they were heading at pace towards West Hill. Alistair would have had them go to Highever without any detour, but the men and horses were getting tired and a bit morose; more so, since they were running out of ale. Around mid-day, they left the main road and took the path that led to bann Franderel's fortress. Alistair rode well ahead of his men, lost in thoughts. He was to finally see Leliana after all these months. He dreaded the moment when he'd have to ask about Kallian's fate. The two notes still concealed in his glove burned his palm. He was sure that, when he'd confront Leliana, everything would prove to have a reasonable explanation. He wasn't so sure, however, that he'd be able to trust the reality of it, and find resolution.

In his troubled state of mind, he failed to take note of the familiar feeling that he was being watched by unfriendly eyes – the feeling that had nagged him for a while already, obstinately seeking to remind him that he was still a Warden. In the past months he'd quite forgotten that not all the darkspawn had been swallowed by the depths for good with the defeat of the Archdemon. Not in the metaphorical sense, at least, as it was quite literally from within the bowels of the earth that perhaps two dozen darkspawn emerged, at the same time with Alistair's call of warning.

Had he been in his old company, two dozen darkspawn wouldn't have accounted much. Had the present party here been afoot, they would have perhaps been able to put some order in their ranks. But, as it was, the horses reared and neighed and got entangled in the harnesses of the others, the mules stood frozen on the spot, and the cook started screaming while Alistair fumbled to turn back and dismount his palfrey, desperately far off from his men.

Two of the squires were the first to go down. They had not even gotten the chance to dismount. Three genlocks disemboweled ser Kirn's horse with claws and teeth, catching the poor knight under a mass of tepid, gushing flesh. The other two knights were holding their ground though, giving the Redcliffe men just enough time to regroup and draw their bows.

Then Alistair finally arrived at the spot and entered the fray. One overhead strike freed ser Mhairi of the Maric's Shield from the clench of the three hurlocks that had all gathered upon her, cleaving one of the unwholesome creatures right in two. He found himself surrounded in no time by other five genlock scouts, which had just finished tearing the poor cook in pieces, fresh blood still dripping from their maws. The last squire stood her ground for a while, at the other end of the field, surprisingly skilled with her shortsword and dagger; but it didn't take long before she too was felled, leaving the only knight still standing alone to face seven, maybe eight darkspawn by himself. They didn't even have room enough to strike all at once, so they crowded and pushed one another grotesquely, while they positively cut one another while trying to get a hit in. Seeing that the poor man was not likely to last long, gravely injured as he was, Kallian would perhaps have thrown an acid vial or a fire bomb on the bunch – but Alistair couldn't bring himself to do it, although he had a couple left, safely stashed in his pouch. He shouted to ser Mhairi instead, in an attempt to convince her to set back-to-back with him, but she didn't listen. She was too preoccupied with getting in his way, in a clumsy attempt of shielding him with her body – a noble endeavor, no doubt, which was worth less than nothing given the state of things. Alistair turned and bashed the closest hurlock with his shield, move that sent a stream of black ichor right in his face.

He could swear that he'd brought down at least four of them. It mattered little in the circumstances. They kept coming, and he was running out of strength. There were no arrows flying through the air any more – the archers were dead, most likely. Alistair felt quite the idiot; by all accounts, it seemed stupid to end like this; with the Blight gone, him being king of Ferelden and all. It was dumb to die like that, took a glance towards ser Mhairi; like him, she wasn't injured yet; she didn't look like she was to last longer than that, though. A surge of anger passed him through. He let the berserker rage engulf him, and he cried out, waving his fury at the darkspawn that had encircled them, fighting one another to get closer and get a nip of their blood. One, two, three, he threw the grenades carefully up and over their heads, where he knew that a second row of genlocks were trying hard to get their turn; he was rewarded with piercing howls of pain and the sizzling sound of burning meat.

"Less fighting, more dying, blast you!" he shouted through his teeth, pummeling one hurlock's face into oblivion with his shield, and launching an assault over another. Ser Mhairi let out a battle cry of her own, and Alistair felt better for it – maybe they had a second wind in them, after all. He lunged forth, barely noticing the blade that got in, wrecking his side. He would not feel much while in the rage, anyway; but some constraint was due. He turned swiftly to his left and barged in with his shield, parrying right with his sword. Mhairi too was giving a hard time to a genlock behind him – he heard a grunt, and then a yelp, and then the gurgling sound of the blood gushing out of a severed neck. Good for her.

It was getting easier now, the darkspawn tired too eventually, as Alistair knew only too well. He stepped forward, allowing himself to be encircled completely once more. Hopefully ser Mhairi had gotten to some sense and would flank them, instead of flying in to protect him. There were only five of them left. Maybe they still had some hope to get out of this alive.

Indeed, she did. Mhairi took down one, and Alistair felled another with his shield. Then he turned sharply to the right and got a good angle on a hurlock that seemed to insist on tackling his companion instead of himself. With a nice strike on its nape, he got it down. He nearly failed to parry the hit from the one in front of him, though, and the shock of the blow sent him reeling two steps backwards. The genlock to his left lunged forth and almost got Mhairi in the back. Alistair managed to step in just in time, though, with a shield bash; Mhairi, at the end of her strength, jammed the genlock down where it had fallen, impaling her sword to the hilt in its chest, but she buckled on one knee right after. Alistair faced the last hurlock standing alone, as he prepared his final blow. With his sword held high overhead, he released a shout and went charging, when the hurlock's battle axe caught him in the riff – too late in the move to break the arch of his sword, though. He managed to land his blow before collapsing face down in the gruesome remains of the beast, which had been cleaved in half.

"Nope, definitely not dead."

Oh, Maker, had he just said that aloud?

Alistair didn't dare move just yet. He was alive, no doubt, but that axe in the guts had been no trifle. Not that he could feel anything, with the shock and all, but, for the Maker's sake, he could hear the _gurgling_.

Ser Mhairi was fretting behind him. He could also hear the noise of hooves approaching fast. Not many, maybe two or three riders in whole.

"We're late. See for survivors," a woman's voice said. The sound of armored feet hitting the ground as they dismounted had never been as welcome to Alistair's ears. He groaned, trying to get their attention.

Keen steps approached, and armored hands turned him gently. He groaned again.

"Over here! This one's had it bad," he heard the woman say again, very close this time. A second set of steps closed in, and he began to feel the familiar soothing effects of healing magic. The afternoon sun was blinding him, and, between that and the blue light of magic, he saw the eerie apparition of the owner of those gentle hands. Her face was shadowed by the sun, but her eyes were clearly rendered, hazel, with a trace of crimson red around the irises, like lit by a glow from inside; her hair was long and purely white. It must have been the light, but even so, Alistair found her incredibly beautiful – if a little scary. His vision was blurred, anyway. He closed his eyes, trying to clear it, but he didn't get to open them again – one moment later he succumbed to a deep, healing sleep.

Alistair woke in a tent, cozily cushioned against soft furs. Restful sounds, of people gathered around a campfire late at night, were coming from outside. It was pitch black, too. He scrambled out of his cot, to find that he was half-naked and mostly wrapped in bandages from chest to thighs. Nothing hurt, though, and nothing seemed unnaturally placed, so Alistair dared to explore around a little. He found the tent's entrance and he stuck his head outside, just enough that he could see a bit around. The campfire was right in front of the tent and on the logs around it several people nursed mugs of ale and shared tales. He recognized the woman from before among them, and she saw him too.

"Ser Mhairi, I think you may want to check on His Majesty. Perhaps he has awaken," she said with all the due demeanor and loud enough that Alistair could hear it, before she averted her gaze, apparently profoundly preoccupied with the tips of the trees around. Alistair thought he saw her stiffen a smile.

Not very kingly, either, to be surprised while sticking one's head out of a tent, to see what goes around it. Alistair crawled back, so that when ser Mhairi arrived, he was safely tucked in and among the furs of his cot, covered up to his chin.

Ser Mhairi helped him dress. A clean shirt, a light brigandine and an inconspicuous pair of trousers was all they had him wear, but Alistair didn't mind. His armor, likely, had been turned to scrap. As he got out, he found everybody standing, with her in front of them. She did no curtsy; she saluted like a soldier, with a brisk bow of her head; it behooved her.

"I am Clarice Cousland, of Highever, your Majesty. These are my men, at your disposition."

She didn't look in the slightest as scary as in the afternoon. She was almost as tall as him, however, and quite impressive in her red steel plate. Alistair responded also with a clear-cut nod.

"Thank you, my Lady. Your help was invaluable." He turned his attention to the others. "I hear ser Kirn has made it, too, but I can't see him here."

"We found ser Kirn caught under his dead horse, both of his legs severely broken. He'll take longer to recover, I'm afraid."

"But he will, eventually? That is all good news. I would very much like to see him."

"Our healer, Anders, is with him right now." Clarice Cousland gestured towards one of her men. "Go see if we can visit."

Alistair knew enough of the kingly business already to make the difference between blind obedience and the firm but polite refusal of bending to the whims of a monarch. Clarice was used to command among her people, obviously, and she was also used to think of her people's needs first and before any requests from above; Alistair approved with a wave.

Everyone was standing on their feet, awkwardly, as if unsure about what was to do next. The man who had checked on ser Kirn returned and said that they couldn't see him yet, but that Anders was expecting him to be out and about in the morning. Alistair headed for the logs.

"If I may, my Lady, there would be nothing that I would like more right now than sharing the warmth of your campfire with the men. It is long since I last indulged in such."

"Of course, your Majesty. Stout?" Clarice poured one herself and offered it to the king, without much decorum. Likewise, Alistair took it and gratefully gulped half of it, before wiping his mouth with his sleeve. The time spent with Oghren seemed to have rubbed off on him.

"So… you're on the road, my Lady?" he gestured at the camp around. "May I ask whereto?"

"We were heading to the Circle, your Majesty. It is a long story, quite, but Highever seems to have a bit of a demon problem. The castle is uninhabitable."

"Oh. I see."

"My brother, Fergus, is there, doing his best to contain the problem, and I left to the Circle to seek help."

"That seems the sensible thing to do." Alistair mulled around his stout. Then he added, mindfully - "Forgive my bluntness, my Lady, but I must ask. I see the laurels on the shields of your men, and I don't doubt your word. But everyone thought the Cousland line lost. You also speak of your brother, but neither of you have joined us at the Landsmeet, if I recall."

"My brother – well – he was kept in the dungeons in Highever all this time. There's been a time when I myself thought him dead. As for myself, I couldn't very well come, as much as I would have desired to seek justice for my name. We Couslands were branded as traitors, maybe your Majesty remembers. Rendon Howe saw to that – after butchering all my family in front of me. Oren – my brother's son – was six." She spoke heatedly, in anger, and it sounded like it was a story that she'd told before, relentlessly, to whomever may have wanted to listen. It may have been the fire, but Alistair thought he saw the shade of red in her eyes again.

"My Lady. I am deeply sorry for your loss. It appears to me there were no depths that scoundrel would have denied himself sinking into. I'm afraid this isn't bound to comfort much, but know that the Warden, Maker rest her, has felled Rendon Howe.

"I know… 'Maker rest her'? Your Majesty, what are you saying?"

"Don't you know? The Warden passed away in doing battle with the Archdemon. They got her alive from atop Fort Drakon, but she lasted only until day the next."

"Your Majesty, you are mistaken. The Warden is very much alive."

"Really? Wow! This is the best news I've received since… I don't know when. My Lady, thank you for the news! This calls for another stout!"

Clarice, though, was wide-eyed and looked upset, fearful, even.

"By all means, your Majesty, have one more, but I, if you'll forgive me, must retire. I am at the moment very much distraught."

"Oh. I'm sorry. How very insensitive of me. I am sorry, my Lady to have caused you so much pain in remembering things that ... – I don't even find the words to describe them. Have a restful night, and thank you for the good news again."

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><p>AN: First: I know that I didn't give translations for the Orlesian bits in the last chapter. I assure you we'll find out some more about the notes (also the full content of the second one) as soon as Alistair meets - well, someone who reads and speaks Orlesian. I also apologise for any grammar mistakes and the unavoidable clumsiness of the sentences - my French is not good at all, and I relied on Google translate heavily.<p>

Second: Anora has the box with Leliana's notes - which means, of course, that the box the girls recovered from the Royal Palace is the wrong box.

Third: We'll see more of Kallian's family later in the story and, no, their position won't change just yet. Change doesn't come easily, plus, the family's attitude will have an impact on Kallian's decisions further on. Also, as I said, this story will have a cannon epilogue (not necessarily the one derived from Kallian's choices so far) and there's a line there that sheds some light on the matter (the one about Soris falling in love with a human woman). So, there will be a resolution of sorts.

Well, enough with the spoilers.. One more thing: Flemeth is not, in this story, a dragon shape-changer, although I like that theory a lot; however, I'd rather have her be the Goddess of destiny and fortune, the keeper of the equilibrium between darkness and light, or an agent of such a divinity. And (spoiler/teaser) she'll have her intervention further on... (I couldn't stop myself from saying it, so, there...)

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that you didn't mind me lingering with Alistair and Clarice too much. If you did, sorry about that. We'll be with them for a little longer, I'm afraid. I love writing this dark, tempered, arrogant and honorable noble, surprisingly :).

Lionheart, you were missed at the last. Hope you're still around.


	13. Misgivings

**_Disclaimer: _**_Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

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><p><strong>Chapter 13 – Misgivings <strong>

The next morning Alistair was in a particularly good mood. He had broken his fast with ser Mhairi and ser Kirn, who was recovering quite satisfactorily, and the day appeared to him to bear many good omens. He had slept soundly, reveling in the news.

He hadn't realized how very troubling this whole affair had been until the very moment he'd learned that Kallian lived. Not only Leliana's alleged part in it, but thinking his fellow Warden dead, too. He'd been too mad at her at the time to acknowledge it. He'd thought that their rivalry in pursuing the same woman, as well as Kallian's dishonorable turn down of justice in Loghain's case had for all time damaged their friendship. His relief and exultation at the news spoke differently. Where was lady Cousland, though, the bearer of the good word? It was well mid-morning.

Ah, but there she was. She emerged from her tent, looking even more distressed than the night before. She wore full armor, and she carried a rolled parchment in her hand. She bore no arms at all, except for the casual dagger hanged by the hip. This could be uncommon in itself, as the night previous she had never parted with her silverite greatsword, not even while feasting and drinking.

She headed straight to the makeshift table, made of two large logs carved in half and set one upon the other, where Alistair was drinking his last sips of ale from his meal.

"My King. May I speak with you?"

"Why, of course. You mean, speak privately?"

"No. The matter requires witnesses."

"Fine." He shrugged. "Speak, my Lady."

"I haven't meant to force your hand thus, intending that perhaps I would let merit speak of its own in the matter of restoring my family to its former station. But, as of last night, I decided that such is unlikely to happen, after all that I have to say to you is said; that there are things that you must know, for your safety and for the sake of the kingdom; that, by all accounts, I must speak of these things, however detrimental they are to my person; but that I cannot let these things shade my family's honor and their rightful stand in Highever. So, before I speak, I will undertake to remind your Majesty the dire state of our acquaintance, I will assure you of the full loyalty of the Couslands, and I will ask your Majesty for a boon."

"My Lady?" Alistair was puzzled as to what was that important as to require such formal approach. He got the intuition that something very _kingly_ was to be required from him in the next, and he shifted slightly under the table, suddenly aware of the looks of all people in the camp being pinned on him. If he'd at least had some armor on… But lady Cousland was speaking.

"I hereby hold a parchment stating that all the accusations of treason against the Cousland name stand false, and that you reinstate my brother Fergus Cousland as the rightful teyrn of Highever, title and lands to be inherited by his blood and kin. I have personally written this and I hereby present it to you, by all the witnesses here, to read and see that my words are true. If your Majesty deems it fair, I would ask you to sign and place your sigil on it, and let it be sent to Highever with a rider at once."

Alistair took the parchment. It all appeared right and fine to him, but the fact that he didn't yet quite grasp what could be so dire as to make lady Cousland want it signed right away worried him a bit. Nevertheless, he couldn't find any sound reason not to, so he did as was told and read the scroll aloud, with emphasis, for all to hear. Then he added, as he himself was writing down -

"Let it be known that this is my true will, Alistair Theirin, by the Maker's will King of Ferelden. Written in the year of 31:Dragon, on the 4th of Ferventis, in the realm of West Hill, witnessed by nine as follows…" he finished by adding the names of all present, then he rolled the parchment and he sealed it with his ring.

"Are you satisfied, my Lady?"

"Yes." Lady Cousland took the parchment and handed it to one of her men. "Ride straight to Highever and take this to my brother. It's for his hands only." Then she bowed like a courtier. "Thank you, your Majesty. My heart is at peace now."

"You're quite welcome. But I still don't understand why it had to be done in such haste." Alistair was doing his best to sound stately and courteous. Something was amiss, so amiss he could almost taste it. But he was too much the warrior not to realize that there was no other way but forward at the moment, so he plunged in and hit the point.

"You mentioned certain things essential to my person and the safety of the kingdom. Can we hear them now?"

"Yes." Clarice bowed her head. "It is known that, during the Blight, your Majesty kept company with the Grey Warden Kallian and a party of several, among which a qunari warrior, a dwarf, a mage from the Circle, an antivan assassin and a bard from Orlais. I told you the night before that I happen to know for a fact that the Warden known as Kallian lives. I haven't said, however, how I did get that piece of information."

"Indeed, you have not. But let me venture a guess here" – Alistair smiled – "the Warden came to Highever looking for a friend; a bard, perhaps, a prisoner held in the Highever dungeons; and, she ran into you."

"Quite. Still. There is more to it. But, before retelling the whole story, I have a warning for you, my King, that you must take heed of. The Warden said, quite literally, that the Queen had betrayed her and her own – which may imply that you, your Majesty, may be in danger - if I'm to believe that you and the Warden were once friends. My men witnessed this declaration – and many other happenings, if you care to ascertain the truth of my word -which I'm giving to you, so that you know that this was what was said, and nothing more of the matter. Also, I must say I mean no offence to either you or the Queen -but I'm sure your Majesty knows better what to make of this."

"Indeed, this is disturbing news. Although not entirely unexpected. Other warnings have reached me, that are now even more established by the news that the Warden lives." For once, the nobility's ways of mincing words made total sense to him – say this and that, and take the time to breathe, for something wicked this way comes. Be prepared.

"You have my thanks for all that you've shared with me so far. But I see no lack form your part, for now, my Lady Cousland. I don't understand your worry, " he said, as gently as he could.

"Well. As I said so far, the Warden came looking for a friend, who seemed to have been apprehended by your Queen, and sent to Highever. So was this deed done that the Warden felt betrayed. But this cannot go without the other half of the story, which I'm not going to conceal from you. It has to be believed that the said friend, the bard, had escaped her escort. That she went lurking around a camp she found, possibly deciding whether it was safe for her to seek shelter there or not. That the camp was mine own. My scouts seized her, and mine own eyes saw her for what she was – a bard from Orlais – rather than who she was, namely one of the famous Blight companions, who fought and bled for the good and welfare of us all. When I saw a bard lurking around our camp, the camp from where I was hoping to launch an assault and regain my city, my mind was set, my conscience clear. This was the enemy – right in front of me. I seized her, and I had her eyes pulled out."

The time for formalities had passed.

"Wait - what?"

Clarice noded.

"This was the deed I was trying to confess. I harmed one of yours. Unwillingly, unknowingly, but, there it is. The deed is done, and I await my judgment."

It took Alistair a while to absorb the news. Leliana had not killed the W… – _Kallian_. It would have been absurd now that he was thinking about it. Anora had her imprisoned anyway, scaring her into submission with that foul note she had, and she'd escaped only to get to something worse – an angry noble lady fighting for her land, who had pulled her eyes out, for thinking her a spy. This lady, as it were.

"Kallian? Did she find out?" Alistair asked throatily, without a shade of expectation. Had she, perhaps nobody worth talking to would have stood before him now.

"She did. She fought me over the bard, and she removed her from my camp."

"I see." If _he _felt like he could cleave the – this woman – in two right on the spot he could only barely imagine how Kallian had had received the news. If Clarice Cousland was here speaking, he dreaded her fate, too. Tread carefully, Alistair, he told himself, suddenly aware of the fact that he had no armor and him, ser Mhairi and ser Kirn were no match for the entire Cousland party ; but the words emerged harsh and blunt, a clear mirror for his feelings:

"May I ask how it is that you are still in one piece?"

The red rings around her irises were obvious now, to be sure, but Alistair was too angry to notice.

"Well, I can say that we were quite evenly matched."

His jaw clenched. All loyal when it came to kings and queens, this woman, who stood in front of him with a lowered head, was the kind who'd readily and eagerly impart her justice on the common people for each and any real or imaginary slight. He'd had it, even before the smug answer.

"Judgment, you say, quite lightly. You know as well as I that there is no law to impede a noble such as yourself to harm a commoner – or, as you'd have it, to see them punished as they see fit."

"I am aware. As well as I'm aware of the same being valid between a King and those sworn to serve him. I'm not to make light of it."

This was not the expected answer.

"Then tell me, Lady Cousland, if I was to order the same to be done to you, who would heed my order? I am surrounded by your men, you see." As soon as the words left his lips, Alistair wanted to take them back. This was an honorable woman, a noble woman who had him in her camp and in her power, who had just gone long ways to confess her crime, or rather, her misjudgment. She answered, however, without taking offense; and what she said was more daunting, even.

"If I give the word, any a one will do it. But, rather than seeing these good, loyal men pushed to do such, I would do it myself, as I did it then." She unsheathed the dagger from her hip and put it on the table between them. "Say the word, your Majesty."

The straightforwardness and decency of it were almost to make him relent; only, he found he couldn't. He felt something dark take over him, something as dark as when he'd quit the Wardens on a whim, when Kallian had decided she'd rather keep Loghain as brother. This had to be paid in blood.

"No." The answer was a surprise even for himself. He couldn't even fathom the reasoning behind his refuse. Mere moments ago he'd been in a haste to take the sentence upon himself.

Leliana was _blind._ He knew for sure that there was no way he could find it in his heart to let a deed like this go unpunished. He was the King, however, and his judgment had to be true, his mind clear. Except, it wasn't. The lady was true and unwavering, although harsh. He admired the courage in her coming forth. The deed had been done unknowingly; surely he had to show lenience for that, as much as bad blood wouldn't let him. What would have Leliana wished him do? Would she have asked for mercy, as she'd done uncounted times before, or would she have asked for blood? He somehow felt that there dwelled the answer, but he wasn't allowed to finish his frantic line of thought. Clarice Cousland spoke instead.

"My King. My deed demands a price of flesh. You hesitate to ask it paid in full – yet you can't forgive." She smiled slightly, even more feral than before. "Let me try and sort this for you."

She took the dagger from the table.

Then, everything happened at once. Clarice Cousland stepped forth and raised the dagger high. Ser Mhairi jumped from her place at the king's side and shoved him aside in the grass. There was a swish and a thud, and the vibrating noise of a blade stuck deep in wood. Then a man's voice yelled 'My Lady' and stopped mid-sentence, as if suddenly cut off.

Alistair rose to see Clarice Cousland standing tall and pale amidst her bewildered people; her left hand was dripping with blood; the dagger was, indeed, driven through the massive table half-way to its hilt, and, still stuck to its blade like butter, lay two severed fingers.

"Here's my token – one for lack of mercy, the other for not knowing. Does this satisfy you, my King?"

Satisfy. Satisfy? Alistair thought he was going to be sick. What kind of folk were these Couslands, what sort of matter were they made of? He'd read just enough history to know they were drawing from the mountain folk, from the proud Avvar tribes who held their hounds and their pride as warriors above all else, from those fierce people who refused to descend to milder lands and be a part of the united tribes with their brothers in the plains. He knew that this had been a thousand years before, before Selim Cousland descended from his mountain with his kin to save them from starvation and lent his sword for money to the lord Conobar. How much of the stern tradition of their ancestors had the Couslands kept, he didn't know. Quite a lot, it seemed. How could anyone impart judgment upon themselves, taking both justice and clemency into it, and at the same time leaving a trail of blood behind? It didn't help him feel less appalled.

"Heal her," he gestured towards the mage. "Yes, you. Heal her."

"Don't."

Alistair felt his temper flaring. He was the King – he even felt the King, and full of righteous indignation. This – this mad lady – had not only taken upon herself to deliver justice in his stead, but she'd opposed his word - how dared she defy him!...

"You! Stubborn woman! You shut up and obey - or, Maker help me, I shall strip you of your rank and forbid you to ever bear arms again!"

All that had held Clarice upright melted in a glimpse. Whether it was because of the words he'd spoken or from the blood loss and the pain, he could not tell. But his quick reflexes brought him in a very unexpected and awkward stance – holding Clarice Cousland's limp body to prevent it from falling, as she passed out. Alistair put her in the grass, with a gentleness he didn't know he owned.

"Anders, heal her." He spoke meekly. But, as the mage did nothing, Alistair suddenly grasped his dilemma. "Leave those fingers off," he snapped, not without noting that saying it loud _did _hold a measure of grim satisfaction, as he mumbled under his breath – "if she's happier without them than without her bloody sword."

"You got _that _right, your Majesty. Especially the bloody part," Anders said grudgingly. He did his healing, though, without further comment.

Clarice Cousland was as heavy as they came, tall and broad shouldered as any warrior and clad in her full plate. It took three of her men to yank her from the ground and get her to her tent.

It was late in the evening when Clarice got out and about again. The camp was quiet, almost everyone around having gone to sleep. Alistair, though, was sitting on a log aside the table, absentmindedly playing with the dagger he'd just pulled out from the table.

She approached, but stopped at a distance, as if unsure if to address him or not. With only a sleeveless shirt and tight leather pants, she looked less impressive, but not by much. Her arms, although not as bulky as a man's, were lined with long, sinewy muscles, and hardly any bit of soft flesh to sweeten them to curves. Her shoulders, broad and well-made, looked as if able to bear an ox; her waist, although trim, was not of the kind one would take pride in showing in a ball-room, nor of the willowy kind that perhaps a man would bend with gusto in his arms. In fact, her person looked as proud and unyielding as the lady herself, long legs and stately neck completing her appearance; she also looked like she'd very much expected to find herself alone, and very much having wished it'd been so.

"My Lady." Alistair waved with the dagger still in hand, beckoning her closer. She noticed the blade and she spoke at once, with the enthusiasm of someone passionate about the art of war, but with little business regarding courteousness.

"Have you gotten that out? I'm impressed. I mean, getting it _in_ is one thing, and pulling it _out_, quite another… Pardon, your Majesty, I spent more than a year in the companionship of mere soldiers. I sometimes tend to forget myself. "

Alistair had noticed her direct manner before, and he found it bracing, more so since she didn't seem to shy away from the said companionship. Had not the terrible deed occurred, he was sure he would have liked this lady quite a lot.

He'd spent most of the afternoon and evening brooding, his mood so foul that neither ser Mhairi nor ser Kirn dared approach him with a word. As things were, though, he found himself subdued by her obvious lack of guile. He chuckled.

"Well, everyone has their talents. Although, I must say, my Lady, I'm not of a mind to challenge your ability of impaling daggers into wood. I'm not as mad as to put it through my hand and this bench here…" the quirked eyebrow of the lady encouraged him to go on "…especially since my bones should be considerably harder. That would hurt my chances, don't you think?"

It was a lame attempt at jest, but Clarice let out a husky laugh.

"You've had me healed. But left the fingers off. Should I think the matter … settled?"

Alistair was carving contours in the table.

"The matter is - very unsettling, still, my Lady."

"I know." She looked aside. "I… your Majesty. I…" Then, the whole dam broke.

"The night my family was slaughtered, a Grey Warden conscripted me and dragged me out of Highever on hidden paths. But I escaped his escort and gone back to fight. I barely got with my life – they thought me dead and ditched me in the moat with the others. Alas, I was not, though I wished to be. Then, two months later, I got reunited with some of Fergus' men. They had returned from Ostagar, only to walk into the new trap that their hometown had transformed into. The commander there had seized Fergus, along with half on them.

However dire, it was good news to me that which told me my brother was alive. I rejoiced. I thought that, finally, tides were turning my way. I set to lead what was left of our men, trying to get Fergus out. In the meantime, news arrived of the Wardens who had escaped Ostagar. Travelers talked about the Wardens building an army; of the spectacular recovery of Arl Eamon; of the Wardens confronting Loghain, and of a new Warden prince and heir to the throne. All that time I was outside the walls of Highever, trying to find my way in, trying to rescue Fergus, hoping that I'd succeed eventually and that I'd come to honor my conscription. All that time I was sending men in, and losing men, and feeling wrong for it, feeling wrong for not being with the Wardens, and feeling wrong for Fergus being held." Clarice paused for breath.

"Then, someone came my way – a bard, lurking in the shadows. I did what I thought best. And then, the Warden came, with two companions – a hedge witch and an elf. They managed what I could not in months and months of effort. They caused an uprising and a fire in Highever. They gifted me the city, while they took back a blind friend. And, what a gift that has been. The once prosperous city ravaged with famine and disease. The castle haunted by mad spirits that once were my friends and kin. My brother – he is just a husk. He can't walk, he can't talk properly. They broke his knees and fingers, and all else but his will. Then you came my way – the Theirin, the heir, my King. I knew as soon as yester evening that I had to speak up. It was the only way I could mend a little of what destruction has come to pass around and through me. Do what you will with me. You see, I don't seek mercy or forgiveness. Maker knows that I find little of each in my own self these days."

She stopped again, perhaps waiting for an answer, but Alistair kept quiet.

"I don't know why I have burdened you with all this, my King."

"I think you do," Alistair said slowly. "I think you know that, while were out there, fighting the Blight, while we all had our ails and heartaches, we also had each other to talk to and lean on. While you were alone at Highever, shouldering the whole burden by yourself, we were together, getting stronger with each trial. I think you were longing for a friend, my Lady, to listen and to understand."

The camp was getting quieter, even. Alistair continued.

"I'm afraid that in this circumstance it is very hard for me to be the friend you're looking for. Be that as it might, I will try; not only for your sake, but also for a friend's – the friend that I shunned when she tried to teach me the value of mercy and redemption. Had I not, had I been there with them in the final battle, perhaps the mischief that befell my – my other friend – would not have happened. See, my Lady, my own part in it forbids that I impart justice in the matter." Alistair spun the dagger on the table, pensively.

"As King, I will say this. Let those two missing fingers be a reminder of your ill-placed eagerness to shed blood – your own, as well as that of others. But forgiveness is not mine to give. You go, seek the one you harmed, and put yourself at her disposition. She will decide what form atonement will be required." His voice softened as he went on. "As a friend, I say you speak to Leliana. Whatever else you or I would do won't give you the release you seek."

"Thank you, my King." Clarice bowed her head.

Then she raised her eyes and their looks entwined. The dismal state of desolation and the misery of them both passed to and fro, in an undercurrent so thick that one could almost taste its bitterness. Alistair could well see that there was only one way to quell it.

"Stiff drink?"

She didn't smile.

"Right on."


	14. Where to?

AN:

****_Disclaimer: _****_Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14 - Where to?<strong>

They drank quietly for a while. The need of talk was little, each lost in musings of their own. Clarice had opened a bottle of chasind mead.

"Where did you get this poison?"

"Say that I have a source… Any good?"

Alistair took another gulp. Bitter, to say the least.

"Fitting."

It took a long time for any of them to speak again.

"You could have had my head, this morning. I defied you, after all…" she bent her maimed left hand, thoughtfully.

"Indeed, it crossed my mind…"

It took a while, for the meaning to get to her. Clarice snorted.

"I can't die yet. Things to do."

"Right. Your beloved Highever. …Would you" – Alistair hesitated – "would you have rebelled? Taken arms against me?"

"Would you have my head if I said such now?"

"_Would_ you have?" There was no hesitation in Alistair's question now.

Clarice measured her drink, thoughtfully.

"That is a question, Your Majesty. I would like to think not. I'd like to think I'm as loyal to the crown as any and most. But then, a cornered beast is as a beast does. My – my second nature - could have taken over." She raised her eyes towards him, as if daring him to say that wasn't true. "So, in all honesty, I don't know. Will you have my head?"

"No."

Alistair raised his cup.

"I do appreciate honesty, my Lady."

Silence fell again.

The bottle went down quickly. Without words, Clarice went to her tent and brought another.

She spoke first, after what appeared to have been a considerable brooding over the matter.

"I don't need p-pity." It was hard to talk through clenched jaws.

"Oh, but you find no pity here, my dear lady." Alistair replied, equally addled. "I'm merely cum-, cum- commiserating…"

"So, er… what would you've had me do? Chores?"

Alistair coughed loudly in his cup.

"Now, there's an idea. A little h-humility wouldn't hurt your complexion."

She laughed. Alistair smiled too, pleased that he'd managed to say 'complexion' without stuttering.

They were at the third when he spoke again.

"…knew Duncan?" Alistair was struggling with his mead.

"Yes, th' one conscripting me…"

"…hailed from Highever, too, you know. I thought that maybe I'll build a m-monument for him or something..."

"Will do. After we get rid of the demons."

"We?"

"I… me and my brother… and some mages, we'll definitely need some mages…"

Clarice filled the cups again, with an unsteady hand. Alistair measured her with one eye open.

"…Your hair…"

"My hair?"

'_Have I ever told you I really like the way you wear your hair?_' Oh. That'd been …someone, saying it to someone else. He'd overheard. Or, he thought he had. And why was he remembering this now? He was blind-drunk. Blind… Somebody was blind, and that was a very sad thing in itself, but that somebody wasn't him, and he didn't really want to remember. That was the reason he'd wanted to get drunk in the first place.

"Your Majesty?"

"Huh?"

"You were saying…"

"…mm…"

"…something about my hair?"

"Why, yes. It wasn't always white, was it?"

Thud.

The King had fallen. Fallen asleep, that was. He had fallen asleep quite indecently lain on one side, with his mouth open. But he was in fact a very decent king. A decent king to die for, even, even if he couldn't hold his liquor. Definitely, he couldn't. He couldn't have been left to lie about like that.

Drunk as she was, Clarice Cousland staggered on her feet and lifted the sleeping king up on her shoulder, much like one would a sack of grain. She wobbled, making a winding course to the royal tent, which she reached perhaps after a triple number of treads than it would have normally taken her, and she deposed the sleeping king inside, in a way of saying. More specifically, she offhandedly dropped him from her whole impressive height of six feet two and lost her own balance in the process, landing squarely above him.

"Aw."

"Sorry, m'King."

"Alistair. Nobody calls me Alistair these days. …'xcept Anora when she's angry." He was surprisingly coherent for a drunk king.

"Alist'r. Ghh-right. 've to go." Clarice found that rising on one's elbows was particularly _hard_ at the moment_._

…

"Oh _sod_. Oh, sod. Oh, sodding sodding _sod. _"

Alistair woke up with a start. Through half-open eyelids, he could see a certain lady crouched in the center of his tent, wide awake and very angry. Maker, had he just _shared a bed_ with this woman?

"Stop swearing. You're not helping."

"What with? I – uh – forgive me, your Majesty."

"What seems to be the problem? I have a headache too, you know."

"Er… It's late. Everybody is awake. And I fell asleep in your tent, your Majesty."

"I thought I asked you to call me Alistair."

"You remember that?"

"I … - think - …I do. I have a way with that. With the thinking, I mean."

"Sorry?"

"Uh, nevermind." '…why was he even _trying _to jest? But he was much too light-headed to actually care.

"So, I fell asleep in your tent, _Alistair._ And you're kind of the _King_, and you're kind of _married. _And everyone is _awake_. And we have to get _out_ of this tent, eventually."

"Oh, _sod_."

"That's what I said."

"How do we fix it?"

"We don't_._ We get out. I go ahead."

Huh. He'd gotten too used to Kallian and Leliana's nimble ways. He could bet those two would have come up with something in a glimpse. No such to be expected of this lady, though.

"Headfirst, then."

Clarice Cousland wasn't smiling.

"You're not _funny_, my King."

"Are you taunting me?"

"Why not? If your wits are failing you one morning, wouldn't you like your _friends_ to tell you?"

"Ah, now we're getting all sweet and sentimental. But, honestly, we'll need a plan."

"A plan? What for? Evading a _tent_?"

"Perhaps we could stay here until everyone else is asleep again?"

This time she did laugh – that husky, brisk hoot of hers, with her face hidden in her hands – but she did. Alistair found he liked to hear the sound of it. One could be sure Clarice Cousland wasn't the kind to laugh a lot. He topped it, making use of his most sultry voice.

"Or, you know, we could create a _diversion_…"

Her shoulders were shaking now, her laughter lined with a half hysterical undertone.

"This is idiotic…"

"My dear lady, I am deeply hurt. If you don't like _my_ reasoning, why don't you do some yourself?"

"Fine!… What sort of diversion does my liege have in mind?"

A commotion was heard outside and a quick approaching of steps, which made them both quiet.

"Your Majesty? Are you awake?" ser Mhairi called from outside.

"Not yet!" Alistair theatrically called back.

She kept her face hidden. "Bad, bad thinking, your Majesty…"

Alistair couldn't rightly fathom why, but Clarice Cousland's distress seemed to amuse him to no end. This though, did not sit well with the lady at all.

"You're _not_ doing this on purpose, … are you? _Sod…_"

Sober all of a sudden, she reached for the closest weapon, which happened to be Alistair's sword, and she landed a high blow against the one main pole of the tent. As they crumbled together in an entanglement of canvas and ropes, she hissed close to his ear –

"Here's your _diversion_, your Majesty."

"What in the Maker's name…?"

Ser Mhairi stood and stared at the sight of her sovereign and lady Cousland emerging from the ruins of the royal tent.

"It was all my mistake. I somehow got entangled with one of the ropes, as I was coming from the brook. I deeply apologize, your Majesty." Clarice Cousland dropped on one knee, looking all contrite.

"It's nothing, my Lady. After all, these things _do _have their way of happening all the time," Alistair replied cheerfully, before bending to presumably smooth his clothes and muttering through his teeth "…and I mean _you,_ waving a blade over _my_ head…"

"Sorry…" Clarice whispered back with a mean look.

Alistair straightened himself.

"See, lady Cousland, no harm done." He offered a hand to help her back on her feet. "May I venture a guess that you didn't have breakfast either? Come join me if you please, I would very much like to grab a bite."

They remained in the camp for one more day.

Ser Kirn was not fit to travel, and, in the light of the most recent news, Alistair welcomed the delay, using the time to recollect himself. He didn't want to think about any of the day past just yet, so he mingled among the few who were sparring at the back of the tents. He didn't put much heart in it, though, and nobody dared try him in the least, so he gave up soon enough and set to sharpen and grease his sword.

About mid-day, they all stopped to grab a bite and Alistair went to the brook to wash. Something, or, rather, someone, threw a passing shade on the spot where Alistair was freshening up.

"Oy, come out!" he shouted, and he was quite successful. The shadow materialized in front of him in the shape of Zevran.

"Shh. They might hear you."Zevran whispered quickly, much like he feared something.

"Huh. They're friends."

"This woman you are travelling with – she is no friend, I tell you. I've seen her before."

"Riiight." Alistair spoke loudly.

"Shh."

"Don't shh me, better tell me how she is."

"Which one? "

"Leliana, of course."

"You know?"

"Yes, she told me." Alistair gestured towards the camp. "I presume you've seen Leliana. So, how is she?"

"Alright, I suppose, given the circumstances… Wait, she _told_ you, and you are still in her camp, fraternizing?"

Alistair was definitely not in the need to explain himself.

"Kallian taught us to forgive, has she not? I'll decide who I'm fraternizing with."

"So be it, then. Who am I to challenge the choices of the King of Ferelden? "

"Right… whatever. Tell me, what are you up to?"

Zevran rose an eyebrow, suspicious at once.

"Why should I tell you? You keep the wrong company, as far as I'm concerned."

"Not as wrong as you might think. But then again, I might just have my reasons. Not that they" – Alistair hastened to add, pointing vaguely towards the camp – "know any of it. Are you trying to find Wynne?"

"Yes. But we didn't find any lead at the Circle, Morrigan and I. She went ahead, trying to reach the girls. Those two went to Denerim, hoping to find something there, and should be on their way to the Tower."

So, Kallian and Leliana _had _been to Denerim. He had it, the proof that the whole thing at the Royal Palace had been their work. Alistair's mind was reeling.

"Listen, Zevran. I know we haven't been the best of friends. But we fought together and shed blood together, even if sometimes not for the same goals. Would you do something for me, instead of Kallian, this time?"

Zevran tilted his head.

"It seems you have grown much more comfortable with asking people favors since you're king, Chantry boy. It depends. Does it help?"

"Yes. I think it does. I'd have you go to Denerim, keep an eye on my Queen. Maker only knows what she's up to. You think you would do that?"

"I should have joined with Kallian and Leliana."Zevran said reluctantly.

"Yes. But Anora needs watching, you must agree. For Kallian's sake, if not for mine."

"You may have a point there. Still – "

"Listen. I am going to the Circle, with them, as King. Greagoir _should_ tell me where Aeonar is, he is bound to. But I'm not the one most fit to spy on my wife."

Zevran laughed.

"Well, if you put it that way… Fine, I'll go. Any final thoughts?"

"No. Just - watch your back."

"Sure. I'll be on my way. Look Dagna up, while you're at the Circle, pass a message for the girls. Ah, and send her my love, will you?"

"Wait – to Dagna?!" Alistair blurted, but he he was talking to thin air. The assassin was gone.

* * *

><p>Kallian didn't know where she was going.<p>

That much was obvious enough, if one was to judge by the hint of hesitation in her steps and the focused silence that she kept for the better part of the day's journey.

They had left the main road a day before. They'd heard voices and horses in the distance, the kind that could announce a large party. Perhaps, even an official one. Kallian had deemed it safer to retreat in the woods and stop for the day. Fortunately, they had escaped unnoticed, but the narrow, steep trail that they were currently following didn't make Kallian happy at all. She could almost taste it, the gloom that whirled around her. They had even to dismount and walk by their horses, and that was since early in the morning. The air was humid and hot, but no sun rays reached down to warm their skin through the canopy. Until they reached the top.

It was dark at first, but then the air started to clear, revealing, slowly at first, but then gaining detail, a meadow with soft grass, bordered at one end by a handful of steep cliffs, sharp as so many dragon teeth, with their tips dipped in the milky substance of the fog that curled lazily around them, as if coquettishly debating whether to linger or to rise. A stream sprung from the rocks and clattered merrily its way down, and perhaps half a dozen blooms of Andraste's grace – the flower that she'd learnt to know not only by its scent, but by its form, here in Ferelden – grew on its sides. A couple of does were grazing undisturbed, even as Con darted forth and out of sight, loosing himself among them with a happy bark.

"Look!" she said, but when she turned there was nobody to speak to. Odd. She could swear Kallian had been at her side only a heartbeat ago.

She reached out and touched one of the does. Its fur was short and soft and warm, and it only raised its head for a second before returning to its grazing. Does were more particular to the vast plains of Orlais than to Ferelden, but then, they were down south and the nature was more endearing here.

"Where did Con go?" she asked the thin air, before remembering that she was alone. Ah well, she was bound to forget things. There was no person more lightheaded on the face of Thedas, Marjorlaine had said so herself, once.

She heard a voice. But that voice couldn't be Kallian's could it? It sounded cruel and unyielding, hoarse in her fine ear as it whispered –

"You can't _see_, Leliana. This is the Fade."

What nonsense could that be… But of course she could. She'd just seen the white-haired does – she'd touched them.

Leliana went forth.


	15. Lost - Part I

******_Disclaimer: _******_Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 15 – Lost – <strong>Part I

"How does this place work?"

After spending what seemed like forever wandering around various meadows and glades, then grazing land, then again small clearings in an annoyingly neat forest, all of them beautiful in a perfectly exasperating kind of way, all honey-lighted, silent and shiny, one emptier and the other, and all, eventually, downright boring, Leliana seated herself on a huge round boulder. Or, what seemed to be a huge round boulder, whatever its true substance must have been in a place like this, she mused, uneasy in part, but half amused by her own way of aptly overthinking things, even in the given circumstance. If this was the Fade, it was quite different from what she had learned to expect. For one, she remembered how she got _in_.

By all accounts and facts, Leliana was no coward. Various deeds and numerous witnesses could be called at any time to confirm that it was so. Still, courage didn't come as natural to her as to other people, perhaps less mindful, or perhaps less tried. She had known true fear and loathing and horror, and fear was easy to find her since. This endless running around without meeting one single lost or living soul had made her weary. Frowning in concentration, she reached up to massage her falling eyelids, in a hapless attempt to clear her dulling vision.

Her fingers met only empty sockets. She'd known how things'd been, but she'd forgotten it for a while – it was hard to remember she was blind in a place where she could see. With the twitch that came with the surprise also struck the thick, engulfing darkness that reaffirmed the raw reality of it. The magic had gone.

Panic crashed in in its stead. It left her without breath and with a steep, searing pain beneath the ribs. Without her sight, there was no hope to find her way around in a place like this. She forced some air in and she steadied herself on her feet. She outstretched her hands, trying to feel her way around – but there was nothing around for her to feel, not even the boulder that she had sat on. The air was still and void of any flavor, except perhaps a feint oily touch that wasn't either humid or clingy to her senses. There was no sound except for the frantic beating of her own heart – even the clear shout that she let out sounded muffled to her ears, like whatever it was that which surrounded her _absorbed _it, only paces away. So this was how nothingness felt, she thought. But there had been _something _around her, instead of nothing, only moments ago. There was _something_ she could do about it, surely. Leliana braced herself.

Her mind was reeling, trying to pull an image - any image - into focus. She took a first step forward, and then a second. At the third, she stumbled.

First, it was a fuzz of grey – very much like that someone would see when lying in the street after having been beaten to a pulp. The smell of dust and dried manure of a sunny summer morning mixed with that of blood and sweat. The earth was warm under her hands when she got up. She looked around. There was dust on her cheeks, and on her gown. She looked around and along the familiar street. This was Val Royeaux, the morning after the party at madame Remercier's. Getting thrown away in style had been part of the plan. Marjorlaine would be able to go around her business unhindered. 'Ah, really?' a small voice in the back of her head giggled nervously, reminding her that Marjorlaine was dead, and her own years of being the older bard's faithful and unquestioning tool – over.

So, she could think of something and, if the will behind the thought was strong enough, she'd make it happen. It was said that only mages could bend the Fade after their will, getting what they required out of it, finding guidance and a way out. But Kallian had been able to navigate it after a fashion, and she was no mage. Maybe, this was the Fade, after all. As she pondered that, Leliana lost her connection with the memory, however, and all went dark again.

The darkness tasted of burnt oil. It had to be replaced with something, fast – preferably nicer, if that was possible.

The smell of horses. Soft fur and huge lips nibbling at her hand. That was her first horse, Chantal, the palomino. Marjorlaine was right behind her, nudging her gently in the ribs, whispering in her ear – go, feel free, take her for a ride. Leliana climbed the horse and stirred her around the paddock before gracefully jumping over the fence.

While in mid-air, she again lost her sight, not to fall into the numb nothingness of before, but into another memory. She was still on horseback, without a saddle this time, and the air around had changed, smelling of forest flowers and of wet leaves and branches. She'd just jumped over a creek with her newly-found courser and she was enjoying the first good gallop in years. She was blind, but it didn't matter at the moment; the wind was howling in her ears and she could still pull a good jump – even if rushed, just a little, as the long stride of the steed had saved them both from disgraceful failure. Kallian was right behind her and she was grateful for the lover that had found her and for waking in her arms this morning…

"Non."

She would not bring Kallian into this. Anything else she could endure, but thinking that the demon that _had to_ be lurking somewhere near could take the form of her lover was unbearable. She blocked her mind, trying to think at nothing, like she was doing when intending to get her face void of all emotion; it was basic bard training. It didn't take long for her to end in the empty space of before, on her knees and panting, as the unreal horse had melted from underneath her without warning – only, this time, the nothingness was tepid and – charged? – with some unwholesome kind of energy; she could hear a strange sizzling where only silence had been before.

"Where are you?" she whispered to herself, tired of the game. Then she remembered something that Morrigan had said that morning near Highever: "The veil near Highever has been torn one too many. Should you feel unnatural resentment or bloodlust, it may well be a consequence of the evil inflicted upon you in the near closeness of the place." There had been no such signs as Morrigan'd warned about, had there? Or, perhaps, not unnatural resentment and bloodlust had been the things to look for – those hadn't been Leliana's most dire flaws, not ever. She paused a little to think on that. Stealing horses, allowing the people of the Alienage to give her money only to maintain her disguise, involving lots of people in a dangerous stunt just to save the few, scheming to get three people killed without a drop of blood on her own hands and conceiving mock letters that could send the whole kingdom in disarray, only because the idea had come to her… such were not the deeds of people kind and faithful, but the deeds of cunning _bards._

So much for warning signs.

If only Morrigan had been around to witness it all – but she hadn't been, and, most likely, she couldn't have been able to read much in it anyway. Such was the way of bards – hard to read, harder to follow – Leliana couldn't find fault with anybody not getting her angles right, between a pair of shoes and a ribbon thrown in for good measure. Kallian had shown signs of worry, though; maybe she should have paid more attention.

She wished for a lute to play, to clear her judgment. The thought of it was so thin she didn't realize it was there until her fingers found the strings and begun to play, and the world around her started to take shape again.

It was Lady Cecile's mansion. The Lady was there, on her favorite settee, with her favorite cushions gathered around her and an entire host of small dogs of all shapes and colors, lazy, long furred cats crammed all upon and near. A peacock was trotting unhindered about the salon, among the various guests gathered there, all eager to hear the miracle ten-year-old – Leliana – play and sing. None were wearing the customary Orlesian masks – this was a much less formal gathering than most in Orlais. It had always been like that in Lady Cecile's house.

She'd just finished her song. Applause and praises ensued. She sneaked a probing peak while she bowed to all, weighing each and every one. She knew why they were there in the first place – Lady Cecile was dying. That wasn't so hard to gather; she'd barely got out of her settee of late, and she had labored breath. Leliana had heard her telling to one of the maids the other day that "it was close". Lady Cecile had called upon all her friends in the hope that maybe one would prove merciful enough to take the poor orphan in their home. But only if she convinced them she was worth it; if she performed well enough.

She hated them.

Lady Cecile was asking her to entertain the guests further; she was apologizing to her highly-praised attendants, telling them in a wavering tone that she wouldn't be able to accompany them to the garden due to her ever-poor health, but that she invited them out wholeheartedly to witness the young one's skill with a bow.

Leliana obeyed and opened the way. As she was walking along the great hallway, it seemed to her that the cases and tapestries, the two rows of empty suits of armor and the weapons hung on the walls became smaller. As she was heading out, even the great hallway didn't appear so impressive anymore.

She had a bow in her hands; it was a fine, dalish piece, the familiar touch of which was most welcome. It had served her well before. The practice target in Lady Cecile's yard did appear to be a bit lower, and quite close, but she didn't pay attention to that. All eyes were on her, and she felt a bit nervous – only, when she looked around, there was nobody but herself, target in front, the familiar apple orchard in the back. She notched, pulled and loosed. The arrow flew true, as per habit.

She had blood on her hands. She knew that, even before she felt them wet with the warm, sticky liquid that fastened her hand to the bow. In place of the target, there was a fallen body, and she could see with horror that it had been Lady Cecile the one that the arrow had struck. She tried to let go of the bow, but that proved quite impossible, and started to run towards the bloodied corpse. She didn't seem to get any closer.

_It_ was toying with her, she thought for a moment, but then she couldn't think any more. The sweet, metallic taste of blood was on her tongue, and soon her whole mouth was full of it, gagging and asphyxiating. She coughed and spat two good teeth with the blood; every breath hurt; her side was burning in the known place where Marjorlaine had stabbed her. She tried to feel the wound, but her hands wouldn't obey. They hurt too, viciously, and the pain searing up to the elbow when she touched the side of her armor made her scream. The surroundings had already morphed into what seemed to be the cold, damp cell where Leliana had spent the most horrible two weeks of her life. When she looked down at her hands, her fingers were broken and bent to unnatural angles.

"Oh, no."

She fell on her knees, and her kneecaps clanked on the cold, hard stone.

"Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no." She couldn't get through _this _again. She was going to break.

There was a companion in one corner of the cell. The bloodied body of Lady Cecile had accompanied her from the orchard here, and she – it – was speaking to her.

"Look how you turned out! I raised you, I educated you, I sat you at my table, and you? Ungrateful child. You ran away. You didn't even wait for my body to get cold, off you went. And where did it get you? Look at you. You're a disgrace!"

The old hag kept croaking.

"Why won't you stay dead?" Leliana muttered through the teeth. She rose, oblivious to all the pains and wounds that plagued her body, and sped to the corner. The thing's – Lady Cecile's eyes were closed, and an arrow skewered through her upper chest.

"You… you… I loved you. I can barely remember my own mother, but I remember loving you. And then you died. Oh, how I hated you _then._ I… - I still do."

Her hands were too damaged to accomplish anything, so she bent her arm and struck the neck of the creature with the elbow, hard. There was a crack when the bones broke, a hiss from the severed windpipe, and then the blessed silence.

"Stay dead."

Bloodlust and resentment, Morrigan had said. Leliana mulled the two words over. Along with the blood in her mouth, they made for an unnerving taste. The taste of madness.

"You must face the source of this."

The words had filled the place, but the speaker was not anywhere to be seen.

Leliana replied, quite annoyed.

"I know, Morrigan."

- end of part one -


	16. The Circle

**Chapter 16 – The Circle**

_Morrigan? What was Morrigan doing there? And how had she been able to reach her within her dream?_

"_Hurry." The voice resounded strongly in the empty space, although it was spoken merely as a whisper._

_Yes, yes – hurry, but what to do?_

"_What do I do, Morrigan?"_

"_Must find the nature of the demon. Can't stay any longer – go."_

_Leliana trusted the witch; only she hadn't realized how much, before. She trusted her advice – but where to begin?_

_Something had happened in there with the intrusion of Morrigan. Mages talked about the so-called 'ripples'of the Fade; now, Leliana could witness them first-hand. The oily smell was ever-present, the sticky darkness that condensed on her arms and brow even more engulfing. But the inert, dark place that surrounded her was changing – she could feel that. It was shrinking, sucking her in, diminishing. It was - fearful._

_She refused to see anything any more. _

_There had to be a way to do without – if she could live in the real world without her sight, she could very well handle it here as well. She took a first step, carefully, slowly. Then another, and another. _

_Confront the source._

_At a certain point, she started to run. She ran so hard and fast that it hurt her knees, the strength with which her feet hit the ground. Yet, the air around her wasn't moving. Not a breeze on her arms, not a lock of hair misplaced, not a trace of the familiar gust of wind to replace the sticky silence in her ears. Nothing, except the surreal sensation that the world was closing in on her. The exertion however, felt true enough, coming along with burning lungs, wobbling legs and an uncanny pain in the ribs as she bent over to catch her breath and draw the obvious conclusion._

_She could run like that forever._

_She was utterly out of solutions._

_Leliana started screaming from the top of her lungs._

"Greagoir, I am the King. I'm _supposed_ to know where it is."

"Not really, no."

"I tend to remember from my Templar days that the only three persons who knew its exact location were the Revered Mother of Denerim, the Knight Commander and _the King_."

"It is customary, yes. But it is more like a courtesy from our part. I certainly find it suspicious that you burst in here demanding to know, if I may. Your _Majesty._"

"Riiight. It cannot be that, let's say, I'm doing a tour of the country and I want it all in good order, can it? By the by, does the Queen know?"

"Yes, she does. So, what does that make you?" A glint of amusement sparked in the old man's eyes.

Alistair was too used to Templar jokes to take the bait.

"Someone who'd rather ask _you_ than _her_."

_Finally._ Greagoir's mood seemed to mellow.

"Indeed it does. Can't say I envy your position, your Majesty."

The Knight Commander paced all around his office, making sure that the door was safely closed, and no prying ears behind it. Then he started speaking with the air of someone lightly sharing idle gossip in a tavern around a glass of wine.

"Say that there are several small islands just north-east of West Hill. Say that if one were to sail along those isles one would hear things – see things – such as a glowing mist in the darkest night, the whispered wording of a long forgotten Tevinter ritual, or a wailing song. The sailors believe that if their ship were to go under there they would be caught between life and death forever, and that no debris would ever be found. Maybe they got the gist of it."

Alistair was dumbfounded. Oh wait, had the old Templar just winked at him? But the Knight Commander went on, undisturbed.

"I'd say you ought not to sail your ships _that way_, your Majesty."

"So-o… that way?"

"That way."

"Thank you, Knight Commander." Alistair paused briefly to contain his exhilaration. His business was not exactly over.

"One more thing. Castle Highever seems to be confronting with a demon invasion. Lady Cousland was wondering whether you'd be able to lend her some mages to help her deal with that."

"Ah, yes. She was wondering about it quite loudly, only a moment ago, in fact, when I passed through the great hall… She has this air about her when she speaks, like she would say 'Can I get you a ladder, so you can get off my back?' – quite unpleasant, don't you agree?"

"Hmm." Alistair couldn't help but chuckle. "I've never thought about it that way. It seems to fit, though... But, back to the issue at hand. What do you think? Would you help?"

"Absolutely not."

"Not?"

"Not. And before you try to coax me into it, I must warn you that I definitely won't have my hand forced twice in one day."

"Sorry to hear, then." Alistair shrugged. "And, why do I have the feeling that it is I who must carry the news?"

"You can do that, now, can't you? Sometimes, you have to face the women in your life, your Majesty. I dare hope that you'll manage to do that outside Kinloch Hold, too."

Quirky old man.

As Alistair knew already, Clarice needed some convincing to leave the Tower without further insistences. However, after a few explanations from his part, she did concede that perhaps the Circle was in no position to help. The sight in the Great Hall was indeed dismal, and both mages and Templars were throwing each other furtive, distrustful looks across the caved-in shelves of the once-impressive library. She'd seen it once before, she said so much with a wry smile, recalling how her Lord-Father had pulled a few strings and made it possible for her and Fergus to see the Circle on the inside, on the pretense of visiting a distant relative – an Amell. While waiting for Alistair to finish his meeting with the Knight Commander, Clarice had inquired upon her twice-removed cousin as she'd waited for Alistair in the hall, finding only that she hadn't been accounted for since Uldred's revolt –news that had saddened her further. Still, she thought that perhaps if they lingered on Lake Calenhad's docks for a while more, the Knight Commander would relent and lend her a few men to weed out the wretchedness that had plagued the Cousland Castle for more than a year.

Alistair begged her to see sense: there was not much he could do – if Greagoir had his mind set on the matter, as it had well transpired, there was no other choice but to take their leave, hoping that Kincloch Hold would see better days.

They were just about to climb Kester's boat when Dagna came running. She handed a small parcel to Alistair, whispering to him under the breath - "You'll need this where you're going, Warden. Er, pardon – your Majesty." The parcel was small and light, irregular in shape and wrapped in the most ordinary paper. Alistair couldn't figure what it could possibly contain, but he thanked her nevertheless, and bid his good-bye. Only when they got on the other side of Lake Calenhad he realized he'd forgotten to pass Zevran's greeting. It was too late to turn back anyway, and he dismissed the thought.

When the party saddled the horses and left the small inn on the lake's shore, the evening fog was falling, and everyone's mood was foul enough to carry a long-lasting silence. They rode hard until midnight past and, forced by a grizzly cold rain that caught up with them around the northern end of the lake, they set camp. Alistair had decided that it was best to take his leave from the others first thing in the morning. They ate a spare meal of dried fruit and traveler's loaf under a makeshift shelter that Clarice Cousland's men had built next to the fire, without anybody needing to tell them to do so.

"Tomorrow we part ways."

Clarice Cousland was mulling over a stale mug of ale that she been working on for some considerable time. Her eyes were glittering with a deep shade of wine-red and her jaw was clenched.

Struggling with a mutton chop that he didn't actually feel like eating, although he'd personally asked for it to supplement the meager offer of food, Alistair muttered something in the way of confirmation. He didn't feel like talking much.

"Are you – are you going to look for your friend, my King?"

"Alistair" he corrected her absentmindedly.

"Alistair."

"Yes. No… What gave you that impression, my lady?"

Clarice hooted in the way of laughing.

"I'm no stupid, King Alistair. Not my place to question your ways, but you have been moving up and about with us – south, to the Circle, then down north again – and now you're taking leave here at the crossroads, quite like you'd intend to go back to Redcliffe… which you could have done a few days ago, when we first reached the shore of Lake Calenhad. So, you're not going back. Nor are you expecting your friend to seek me out for vengeance, as I first thought, since you are not eager to travel with me any longer."

"Leliana may very well be with Kallian in Denerim. I'm not worried over her whereabouts." Alistair said quickly.

"In Denerim?"

Ouch. Clarice had jumped to the news like a dog to the bone, fact that was not to relieve him in the slightest of the distinct feeling that revealing his friends' whereabouts was a mistake – of the 'mistakes with consequences' kind.

"You can trust me." Lady Cousland was measuring him with a knowledgeable eye, half melancholy and half amused. "Such as I am."

"Huh. Right. I... "

"I've been meaning to give these back to you for a while now. I, well just – I didn't seem to find the right moment. But tomorrow we part ways."

Alistair realized that he'd thought of the two notes that he'd kept hidden in his glove not once since his encounter with the darkspawn. He had received clothes and armor and gotten his own weapons back, but there had been no trace of the notes whatsoever. Had they been destroyed in the fight, or perhaps lost forever with the scraps of his trashed armor? He hadn't asked. Faced with the two crumpled pieces of paper that he'd been intent to keep upon him at all costs, he fretted on the spot, feeling his cheeks borrowing some heat from the waning embers of the fire. To conceal his bother, he asked the first thing that came to mind.

"Have you read them?"

Lady Cousland nodded.

"I did, in fact. When I found them stashed in your glove, I took them and kept them away from my men. I thought that they must've been important. But, well, they weren't sealed or the such, and – yes, curiosity got the best of me."

"You mean you've read them _both_?"

"Yes?"

"You mean, you can both speak Orlesian and read? …er – I'm sorry, that didn't come out right." Alistair fiddled with the two paper pieces nervously.

"You want to know what it says?"

"Anora has this elven maid who's from Orlais, but she can't read. And now, Leliana can't read, either." Alistair took pride in himself for the brilliant line – he couldn't let lady Cousland think Leliana had anything to do with _that_ note, not before truly knowing its content. Only, the way his words wiped out the smile on Clarice's face shrank his enthusiasm substantially.

"Right. Give it over."

She unfolded the paper with curt moves and started reading. Her Orlesian was not bad at all, judging by the way the words flew from her lips, neat and minute. Other than that, as far as Alistair could tell, she could as well be speaking Qunari.

" '_Si un Garde des ombres ôte la vie de l'Archidémon et survit, vous faudra le tuer.'-_ _'If a Grey Warden takes the life of the Archdemon and survives, you must kill them.'_" At Alistair's lack of reaction, Clarice frowned visibly. "It doesn't make much sense, if you ask me. Perhaps the one who received this note had to slay the Warden who delivered the killing blow? Or all the Wardens who fought the Archdemon and survived? The wording is more than unusual."

Alistair was at a loss of words. It couldn't be… Could it? Everyone had agreed that Loghain had died in delivering the final blow. He'd taken it for granted. But what if …? No, it couldn't be. Why kill the surviving Warden, anyway? If whoever had written the note had wanted to weaken Ferelden or the Wardens, they'd better named Kallian in person. It didn't make any sense. Plus, he knew Leliana; she wasn't a killer.

He took the paper from Clarice's hands. Like all-too-often of late, he found good comfort in long sentences and kingly, intricate politeness. Long sentences allowed one to think and to compose themselves, and, slowly, Alistair got his voice back.

"Well, my lady, your words bring more questions than answers. But I thank you, for this, as well as for your straightforwardness in all that concerns me and the kingdom."

"Right."

Lady Cousland seemed curiously bothered. "No need to get formal with me now, _your Majesty._ I can help, you know."

Shrill voice or no, he enjoyed her companionship. A shadow of an idea had gnawed at a corner of his mind on the road since Kinloch Hold, but he had not decided upon it yet. Now that the offer had been made, he hardly found reasonable grounds to refuse. In the days of the Blight, they had seldom – if ever –left strong, capable warriors behind, when they'd encountered them. Wardens took all the help that was offered. What would Kallian have done in his stead? Alistair being Alistair, he spoke on impulse.

"Yea, well… You still need mages, don't you? How far would you be willing to go to get them, lady Cousland?"

She smiled briefly.

"Clarice. You never call me to my name, however adamant you are that I call you yours."

"Clarice – hmm." Alistair raised an eyebrow. "That's rather élite, don't you think?"

"I got used to it… to the name, I mean. I didn't like it at first, either."

"Maybe that's where it comes from… the-ladder-thing…" Alistair's voice trailed, mincing the words to an almost indecipherable grump.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Nevermind…"

Clarice frowned and paused, as Alistair wasn't willing to elaborate.

"Ah well. But, to answer your question – quite far, I must own." – "About getting magi, you asked me how far I'd be willing to go -" she added, in the ways of explanation.

"Yes. I mean, I was wondering… Anders?"

"He is an apostate, as I suppose you guessed already. He found shelter in my camp almost a year ago. However, one mage is not nearly enough to face the challenges at Castle Cousland."

"How about… well, one more mage and a Templar would not make such a big difference, after all, would they…"

"A mage _and_ a Templar? It would make a great difference, if you ask me. But – if I may venture a guess – acquiring them may not prove all that easy?"

"Quite, my lady – Clarice. The mage is in Aeonar."

"But everybody says that getting someone out of Aeonar is downright impossible. For one, no-one knows where it is…" Clarice stopped suddenly – "You _do_ know, don't you?"

Alistair smirked.

"I know only – it is _that way,_" he said, waving largely at the northern half of the world.

"Right… Left to his own devices, he'd tell you he don't know where Denerim is. Tricky king."

Alistair laughed.

"Come on – I am rather nice a – King – Warden – person…" A pleasant heat caressed his cheeks, coming from the almost smothered embers; it made him talk a little louder and a little higher than he usually did. "It's just that, see, I used to be surrounded by friends; people that I knew well. Also, what I did or said didn't use to amount to much…"

"Feeling a little overwhelmed?..." she put a comforting hand on Alistair's knee. The hand had three fingers, and the touch was gentle, if somewhat oblivious. "Don't. It's the surest way to lose a battle, father used to say…"

Alistair did and did not agree – it was the surest way to lose a battle, or the surest way of keeping it real – the awareness of how easy one could lose everything they put their faith in, again and again, was not new to him. But she had meant it in comfort, and, obviously, remembering her father had made her sad. Alistair covered her hand with his, attempting to give some comfort in return. The silence that followed was friendly, almost, and he almost felt like the first nights at camp, when there had been only Kallian and Morrigan and Leliana and Sten, barely knowing each other, and barely daring to ask and speak about this thing and that, about life in the Chantry, about bad dreams, about Duncan…

"So, breaking into Aeonar with me, are you?" Alistair forced himself to sound cheerful. "Very kingly of me, that my first deed of arms be to storm a prison – the magi prison, no less."

Clarice, though, seemed to have snapped back to the severity of before. She withdrew her hand.

"It is kingly to defend those who have been loyal to you. And yes, it will be a feat. We can't have your name hooked to this one."

"That's why we need a plan. Call for Anders. We will need his help."

"Go to Aeonar. With Anders. Fine."

"If he's willing."

"If he's willing. Indeed, it would be rather dangerous for him - he may refuse. What else? You said nothing about the Templar. Where would we get that?"

"The Templar? Why, that would be me."

Clarice raised an inquiring brow, but Alistair merely shrugged.

"Long story."

She huffed – "I said it. Tricky king."


	17. Asunder

**Disclaimer: **_The Dragon age world doesn't belong to me_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 17 - Asunder<strong>

"She is aware. 'Tis all I could gather."

Splashed against the tall grass, Morrigan was breathless. She was sipping slowly from the master lyrium potion that Kallian had handed over to her, wary of not overcharging herself.

"Anything else?" Kalian was probing, threading carefully. She could well see that something was nagging Morrigan, but she didn't want to push things. The witch had already done enough.

"There is something else, indeed. She can bend the Fade around her, like a mage."

"And – that's a good thing, no?"

"Yes and no. It might be that the creature there is bound to her more deeply than I expected."

Kalian threw the witch a weary look.

"So, how long until you can go back?"

"Can't. It won't let me find them again."

"There's no need to deny yourself your vision."

oo

The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, and it sounded strangely familiar. Still, Leliana couldn't say exactly why that was. It certainly didn't resemble to the voice of any other person known to her in the real world.

"It's your mind that sees here, not your eye. It's useless to torment yourself so."

Fine. What the creature said made sense. Even as she knew that it was wiser to dismiss all things that demons in general had to say, in this particular instance not listening defied common sense.

"Show yourself, then."

The sticky darkness started to recede, slowly getting replaced by a lavender, enchanted light, which grew and grew until it became unbearably intense. Through half-closed eyelids, Leliana could see a fuzzy silhouette approaching, one that she couldn't make the features of until very close – a couple of paces in front of her. When she did, she recognized -

Her face.

"I am Leliana," the being said, cheerful in tone and friendly in manner.

"You can't be. I am."

"Perhaps you are, but I am too."

"No, you're not. You're a being of the Fade."

"Still – I am Leliana."

"Right. That makes two of us. Or are you saying that I'm not?"

"I didn't say such. On the other hand, I don't remember being anyone else but Leliana; do you?"

The tone was conversational and unengaged, as if the question had been sprung out of pure curiosity. Leliana felt a sudden urge to laugh hysterically.

"Do I - _what_?"

"Do _you_ remember being anyone else?"

"No? But…but…I'm real. I'm not dwelling in the Fade, for one."

"Well, you keep telling yourself that. But that's, oh, very relative, ma chere. For example, where are you now? Are you here, in the Fade, with me, or are you outside, hungering, thirsting, your body withering due to lack of use? If you are there, could you move, let's say, your left foot?"

Of course she couldn't. The creature had her trapped in this fake world. But she was aware, and that meant she could make her way back, provided she could destroy this – demon, spirit. What in the void was it, anyway?

They'd always said that madness came from the demos, those creatures that one encountered while unguardedly trotting the Fade. But this encounter gave Leliana chills on the spine. She'd never heard of anything much like it. What if the Chantry was wrong – what if the source of one's madness was only oneself, and no other? It then made all the sense in the world that she'd only meet herself here, in this Maker-forsaken distorted realm of dreams. She crushed the eerie thought, as she forced herself to remember Morrigan's words on the day after she'd left the Cousland camp – she had to believe. This was nothing else than a demon, foreign of her being. It had to go away.

"Killing me will kill everything that you've become" - came the swift answer to her unspoken thoughts. She'd thought them private – it seemed that they were not.

What was the nature of the creature? She dismissed Rage and Hunger demons – the creature was too calm – Sloth too, it didn't fit. Desire demon, then? Perhaps.

"No desire. But I feel a longing in you – I am you, remember? – a longing to _forget_."

"So you're reading my mind, then? You must be knowing what I'm thinking – that you must be a spirit of – of oblivion" (was there even such a thing?) " – since you don't remember anything else but me. Me, yearning to forget."

"Hmm. I'm not remembering this or that. I only know that I am no one but Leliana."

Oh. Bows and daggers were of no use here. Nor were pleas and negotiations. Leliana decided to go with the flow of things. The least she could accomplish was to get a better gist of her opponent.

"Very well, then," She said, in a light, conversational tone. "So, what are you doing around here, usually?"

"Lingering, I think."

"And when you're not?"

"Peaking. Deciding if I want to forget or not. You have a beautiful way of _feeling_ things."

She did? The creature put honey in its words; it seemed it had no small amount of cunning. But so did Leliana.

"You think so? With me being blind and all, there must be limits to what I can and cannot offer in terms of –peaking–, no ?"

"No, really. I mean it. There's so many ways of slipping past and not noticing the beautiful things in life… I should know, trust me…" The creature seemed to wish to add something in the means of an example, but all that came out in the end was a disheartened sigh – "…oh, I can't _remember._"

Leliana saw the opening and pounced.

"I am _flattered_ – that you _feel_ this way – about it." She let all the honey of a bee-hive pour in her words, with the due hesitation on the 'flatter', with the appropriate whisper on 'feel' and the pause of a heartbeat just before 'about' that was designed to send tickles up the ears of any listener. "But you've also made me _very_ curious. I know you can't remember. But, maybe, you can show me, what you mean? Perhaps it could do you some good, as well."

The creature threw Leliana a sad, spiteful look.

"You don't give a darn whether it would do me good or not."

"Indeed. I thought that maybe we could help each other, instead of… of…"

"…Instead of what? I'm not fighting you, as you well can see."

"And, I _don't_ want to forget anything. Hence, I'm not killing you. I'm sure there are things that – that don't belong to me – in this place. Things that I can't possibly have knowledge of. Show me!"

Intimidation was definitely not Leliana's forte. Although she'd put all the menace she could muster in her words and the creature cowered in front of her, it did nothing in the means of shifting the omnipresent, nauseating lavender light.

She tried again at sweetness.

"Surely you must want to know how you look like… How your own nature feels like… Don't you?"

"You don't understand. I am no-one but you."

"Fine." Leliana was losing her patience. "I believe that any attempt to talk you out of – er – being me would prove futile."

She conjured a lute out of thin air, quite like she'd done before, and started to pour incessant, haunting rhythms in it, while her voice modulated wordless wailing notes. She too had her own blend of magic, and if this creature had any clue about what was good for it, it'd better braced itself.

The dazing tune lingered, contained for a while, as if muffled by unseen, woolen walls, but then it caught wind and started to reverberate from here to there, back and forth, amplified a tenfold by the very essence of the place.

Distraction was a dangerous weapon – all bards knew – as dangerous to the wielder as it was to the foe. But all bards knew that there were times when risks needed to be taken, and confounding a situation that was going from bad to worse was always naught but an improvement. Hopefully, it would help her see what she knew was there and the creature denied her from, whether it remembered or not.

The landscape morphed again.

She felt sick at first, and dizzy, lying in the tall grass, incapable to move. In the near vicinity, the rumor of a fight drew closer, and the uncanny sensation that someone was sucking the very life from her soul brought an ashen taste to her mouth. She felt a tug, as if jerked out from her own body, and then a moony pale light hit her eyes. The sense of fear was gut-wrenching, as well as the yearning of hiding from any and all things around.

Leliana found herself very close to a bloodied cheek, whispering "I'll protect you" with a mouth that wasn't hers. She then gained distance, only to see that the cheek had been her own, wrapped in rags and bloodied, the way it must have looked the night when Kallian had found her in Clarice's camp. She saw Clarice herself, wrought in the middle of the blazing storm that Morrigan had conjured, but not for long, as she was sucked backwards and up, until she reached under the bark of a nearby tree. There, she slept a while.

When she woke up, she was in a sort-of prison cell. A sort-of cell, because it was well-lit all over and quite warm, and she was sort-of in it, or, rather, in one of its walls – as if the wall had eyes, and those eyes were her own. She wished herself out and found that she was capable of moving freely this time, as she stepped inside the room.

A man lay in a corner with one arm bent over his brow, hiding his features. Still, she could make out his pointy ears and unkempt beard, as well as parts of his haggard body revealed by the threadbare rags that covered him.

"I know you," the man in the corner snapped, as he jumped to his feet. "I am happy to make your acquaintance."

"Oh?" There was no end to the wonders of the Fade, apparently.

"Yes, yes…" the small man seemed very excited about something, as he paced round his cell up and down. "I remember you. I dreamt about you."

"Oh, really? I thought this was a dream..."

"Yes, yes, yes." He paced even more furiously than before. "Dream you, dream me… Then dream both for you and me…"

What in the Void…

"Excuse me, are you mad… er, ser?"

"Oh, I was. Mad at heart, mad as a hat – or as a bat – you know, just mad like that…"

"Are you alright?" Great. Now she started to sound like him. It even _rhymed_.

"No-no-no-no. Not _alright_. Alim. Alim Surana, blood mage, at your service. Mad as a rabid rat."

"Not a spirit, then?" Leliana remembered the mad hermit that they'd met in the Brecilian Forest, during the Blight. A mage, even a mad one, could prove to be a powerful ally in this Maker-forsaken corner of the Fade. And, for once, he didn't sound as cracked as before, although what he went on to say proved to be unnerving enough.

"Not a spirit. Real as I may be. I even have a body, kind of. It must be around here, somewhere, only I don't seem to remember where."

"Should I speak in rhymes, too?" Leliana offered, in an attempt to keep him focused and friendly. Although, Maker knew, this conversation was annoying into the beyond.

"Only if it pleases you," came the swift answer, and the mage seemed quite pleased with himself, too. Oh, and she was _thinking_ in rhymes, so maybe conducting a poetry contest with a mage that was mad as a blighted rat with a hat and a bat and forgetting what she was at - Leliana shook her head to rid herself of the cluttering rhymes - was not such a good idea.

"Perhaps you know something about…- " Leliana turned around, quite sure that the spirit had followed closely. Without much surprise she found behind her – not herself, this time – but a glamorous replica of the mage she'd just met, sporting a beard and having all his teeth, with much longer hair drawn back in a neat ponytail, wearing fine enchanter robes and an intricate staff slung on his back. She finished her sentence with an eloquent wave of hand " – well, our friend here."

"Aa, him…" Alim giggled, seemingly slipping back in madness. "Hee-hee-hee-him I've summoned from beyond the Veil. I believe they call them Tricksters, you know, those spirits that guide the rogues when they step into the shadows? At their most powerful, they're supposed to render one invisible, hee-hee… I was trying to get out of Aeonar, with the help of this fellow here. Only he, he decided to render me invisible from _myself_… Not that I mind, see – I'm not in the right mind to…" he finished with a guffaw.

Then, his mirth vanished without trace.

"I would _really_ like to feel like myself again. So, please, don't feel offended, friend."

It wasn't exactly clear who those last words had been addressed to, as Alim closed the distance between Leliana and him. A skeletal hand clawed her wrist open, and a mist of blood surrounded them both as he started to cast.

"I, Alim Surana, call upon the powers alive in the blood that is given to me. I, Alim Surana, whom you may never again call by name or remember, rend thee – Asunder."

There was a _thum_ and a _thrusk_ and the entire dream world started to moan, twist and flicker as if crumbling from within.

Leliana was splashed against the floor, all drained. She was aware enough, however, to hear and to understand the words that Alim seemed to mutter to himself, while pacing and rummaging around his cell.

"Sorry again, my friend. I had no choice. You'd better get out of here fast."

"I will," Leliana whispered under her breath as she watched the mage zooming out of her vision, "there's no need to worry about me overly much, honestly…"

oo

"What's going on?"

Two long, gashing wounds had appeared on Leliana's arm out of the blue. Kallian could swear that she'd been watching her all the time; certainly Leliana hadn't clawed herself like that in a fit of her dream. A red, bloody mist arched from Leliana's left wrist up and over the forest, heading west, like a gloomy rainbow.

"Morrigan. Wake up. Something's happening."

The witch was taking her turn to sleep. She started and forced herself right up, with a look on her face that bode nothing good.

"Quick." She cut Kallian's wrist open and started to weave a spell. The blooded mist swirled towards and surrounded Leliana. "She's getting sucked in."

"What are you doing, though?"

"Weaving a path for her to come out, of course."

oo

When she could finally gather her feet, Leliana rose. It was dark and dump, but the rumbling-and-moaning noise had stopped. Maybe she still had time. She started running again, and this time it felt like climbing up a hill. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to bend the world around her like before – but, perhaps, if only… if only she could will out a door… She pictured in her mind the door to lady Ceclie's mansion; the door to Marjorlaine's door in Val Royeaux; doors from various inns and taverns that she'd sung and danced in; the door to the vault in Redcliffe Castle; doors in dungeons and doors in homes; even a lone door in the middle of a forest. Nothing happened, and she kept running uphill.

After a while, it started to feel as if being drawn in the middle of a swirl. A warm, strange, tacky mist was sticking to her hair and hands. Something was vaguely taking shape ahead, a reddish and dark glow that became more and more clear as it swirled in front of her, out of reach, but only just.

She saw it afterwards – a single, blooming, glittering rose, dripping, woven in blood. She stopped only for a glimpse to think whether to make a grab for it or not. Then, she fell.


	18. Wynne

**Disclaimer: **_The Dragon Age world doesn't belong to me_

* * *

><p><strong>Ch 18 - Wynne<strong>

Since she'd arrived in Aeonar, it had been rather obvious that she'd had an advantage over all the other mages there. She'd been able to sleep, for one. Not the fitful, guarded shuteyes that left one more tired and desperate than before, and not the deep, tormented slumber of those trapped in the Fade, who lay on the floor of their cells drenched in their bodily produce, soon to meet their demise by starvation and lack of motion. She hadn't turned into an abomination either, as it had been expected of her, judging by the guarded looks of the Templars assigned to supervise and feed her - which, in Aeonar, occurred once every three days, in the form of a lukewarm, tasteless, unidentifiable gruel that, luckily, didn't contain anything alive. This hadn't bothered her much, anyway; at her age and with her experience, she was used to go on by little of everything, except maybe a bottle of wine and a good read in the evenings. If anything, the three months spent in there had brought her closer with her spirit guardian, allowing her to spend a few good hours every day in the Fade to experiment, to read (only books that she remembered by heart) or even to relish in a good feast now and then, when hunger and thirst really got to her, in the select company of four or five wisps, creatures of the Fade that had never lost their apparent affinity to her since she'd learned of their existence, as an apprentice, some fifty years before. For all the Templars knew, she was meditating. And she was sleeping soundly eight hours in twenty four.

Of course, there was some part of hardship. The screams never seemed to cease completely – in one or another of the blindingly lit cells (there were bright magelight lamps hung on every wall, at all hours) somebody was ever tormented or turned. One slip it was all it took, Wynne had always known. The desperation of many carried them over the brink, in the land of all possibilities, in a pitiful attempt to even the odds and regain their freedom, while they seemed to forget that the land of all possibilities was also the land of all doom.

Much like the present occurrence.

In a nearby cell, some mage screamed and thrust into the doors of his cell as if convinced they were actually capable to tear them down to ashes. A couple of hurried steps, marked by the rhythmic clinking of armored boots, revealed two or three Templars zooming to the place to put the poor soul to their final rest.

Only, things didn't seem to unfold as usual. After a while, the clanking of steel and the noise of doors knocked wide open, the shouts of encouragement and the yelps of pain had all ceased, but not followed by the usual neat rhythmic noise of trained armored boots falling back in pace; in fact, followed by nothing but silence. For a few moments, Wynne listened carefully. After a waiting that didn't seem to shed more light on the incident, she leaned onto one of the stone walls of her cell and begun her meditation for the day.

When she was awakened by shouts at her door, it seemed that not even an entire hour had passed. She got up quite annoyed; this was not even a meal-day, to make the disturbance worth it. However, the people out in the corridor were calling her by her name, and that fact alone was enough to draw her attention. Not to mention that one of their voices sounded conspicuously familiar; although, the thought that the boy who was ex-Templar, ex-Warden and the current King of Ferelden was trotting merrily on the corridors of Aeonar's dungeons was amusingly outlandish in itself. Perhaps her ears were playing tricks on her.

"We have to get you out" one of the voices said. "There is a blood mage on the loose."

Ah.

"They can cast?" she inquired casually through the door. How, she wondered. One could draw energy to cast from the wisps and spirits, but that only worked in the Fade. In Aeonar, the wards were aimed at blood magic as well as ordinary spells. Unless they got supplied with blood from elsewhere, outside the fortress, channeling it through the Fade. Wynne wondered if such a thing was even possible. And if it was, what were the odds that a desperate blood mage trapped in Aeonar would be cast in the same dream with a helpless being from Maker knew where?

"Stand aside," a woman's voice cried, and the minute next the door to Wynne's cell was banged open.

Oh, really. The antics these young people put up with... The small room was filled with them. There was a blonde, tall warrior – no, her hair was actually white as Wynne's – and why didn't she wonder that Anders, the rogue boy from the Tower, was here? He was clad in leathers, his hair dyed in a conspicuous shade of grey, and he sported a mean-looking sword on his back, which Wynne could wager that he couldn't swing for his life. It didn't make it difficult to recognize him, in spite of the effort. Also –

"Alistair? What in the world are you doing here?"

"Doing a tour of my kingdom, of course. Checking if everything is in good order – which, obviously, is not the case." He gestured towards the corridor, where the gruesome sight of four fallen Templars ripped apart by what appeared to be a kinetic explosion led the path towards a cell further down, the door of which precariously hung on the bottom hinge promising to fall.

"Oh. That is – uncanny. Do you have any idea how they did it?"

"No."

"And why in the world are you letting me out for? It is going to endanger your relations with the Templars _and _the Chantry."

"No, it's not. And, anyway, who's to say that your door hasn't been opened by _that_?" Alistair pointed at the mayhem in the corridor.

A sinister screeching sound cut Wynne's answer short.

"Alright, let's go," said the white-haired woman, already strolling down the corridor.

Alistair bared his sword and got his shield ready. The magelights ahead were flickering and a steaming purple mush was rising ankle-high on the floor. There was no telling whether the wailing, swishing noise came from the Keening Blade that Alistair yielded, or from the surroundings; the dripping one surely wasn't coming from the sword. The corridor seemed deserted, however, except for the occasional limb or piece of gut splayed against the stone walls and floors. They crossed it at pace, taking first a right turn, then a left, as they followed the white-haired warrior. They seemed quite properly lost in Wynne's opinion, but she kept it to herself. Obviously the Templar boy had a way of finding people to lead him and this was not a trait that would recommend one as king, but she would pursue the matter later. Then, the screeching came again.

"What on Thedas is that?" the woman asked with a frown.

"That, milady, would be an a-boni-mini-bimi-rumination. An abomination." Andres mock-stuttered in reply, getting his staff out from behind the greatsword on his back, which had obviously served only to conceal it.

"Or five," Alistair confirmed grimly.

Then, the things were all on them. Surging from the corruption on the walls, weaving their contorted, elongated bodies above the bloody mass of limbs and gore that covered the floors, bound together by will only, spitting a glut of fire that lasted as far as the eye could follow. The girl barged ahead with a war cry, cleaving left and right with her greatsword.

"Is she mad?" Wynne asked wearily.

"Almost," came a hurried whisper from Alistair, before he ran forward to join her.

Which, of course, left Wynne behind, with Andres only as guard.

"Try to keep them still as much as possible," she advised absentmindedly, as she was evaluating the battlefield.

Other than muttering a "Yes, grandma" the young mage showed enough discipline, and even more strength of will. Spells cascaded off his fingers in a hurry and with great exaction; it was good that one of the young knew the importance and efficiency of lesser spells in a long battle, Wynne thought she'd tell him so later, as she patiently placed her glyphs – Warding ahead, near the warriors, Repulsion right in front, Paralyzing on one creature that was about to slip through the pincher of the blades. They all fought valiantly and the abominations fell one after the other. But -

It seemed that all and every of Aeonar's cells had spewed abominations, and grinding forward the long corridor ahead was taking a lifetime. One, two, three, ten, fifteen – after a while Wynne stopped counting the successful hits of the greatsword. After a bit more she could see its yielder no more. The glyphs had long worn off before she and Anders could step closer to where Alistair had been holding the ground; he'd fallen backwards in the much after desperately trying to protect himself from a leap that had skewered his shield. Behind him, more of the creatures lurked about. She launched a Stonefist that found its target as Andres splashed a Cone of Cold ahead, which he doubled with a Crushing Prison. Two shattered, one damaged, but melting back to action. She threw a Chain Lightning down the hall. It went down bouncing at least six times before flickering around the corner, showing how many of the foul things were there still. Without warriors to keep them at bay, the chances to get through were slim. Anders charged forward to meet one headfirst, giving Wynne the needed time to revive Alistair. She ran past him as he was gathering himself from the floor in haste.

"Can you use that, boy?" she asked Anders, pointing at the sword on his back.

"What?" he shouted back, busy with the Walking Bomb spell he was nesting between his palms.

"May I?"

Wynne didn't wait for an answer as she helped herself to the sword. She didn't have much strength left, barely enough to keep the Shimmering Shield up – but she did, and she charged ahead, with Anders well at her back. She knew she could last almost indefinitely behind the shield, but she couldn't afford to cast. She hadn't used this sort of knowledge a lot, but she remembered as if it had been hours before – the deep understanding that had been transmitted to her through Kallian's hand as she held it, while the Warden had held the ancient phial in the other. The deep understanding of how to use magic in place of strength, of how the ones that lasted longer were the victors, of how all victory seemed empty if one lasted too long. Freezing and bashing reached her from behind by the manner of sound, and the noise of a sword clattering against the wall from ahead encouraged her to advance. If only she'd last long enough to regain her strength and heal them.

She was encroached. She had dragged three on her tail, and four more of the foul things had advanced from the corridor on her right, flanking her. A greatsword was by no means a tool for defense, Wynne knew; it offered even less protection against fire. So she swiped and she swiped mindlessly at the creatures, merely trying to keep them at a convenient distance, until her head hurt and dizziness almost overwhelmed her. Her age may have been an advantage in regard to power of will, but swinging a greatsword was no trifle. As it was, the earth-shattering war cry came right on time.

Not that the view opened by the fallen abominations was in any way more sinister than what lay behind; not that the walls were covered in more blood than before; not even that the fact that the way was clean and empty, which would otherwise have proved encouraging, conveyed an ominous undescript feeling about it; but when Andres and Alistair finally cleaned the spot, Wynne was shaking, as if a much more malign presence had just passed through. She couldn't pin it, so she shrugged the feeling as she healed the boys. In a place like Aeonar one was bound to come within meeting distance with all sorts of foulness. If they could pass unnoticed, though, it mattered little.

"Have you felt that?" Not getting an answer, Alistair turned to Anders. "Have you?"

Anders shrugged.

"Where is Clarcie, by the way?" he persisted.

"I'm right here." She'd emerged unscathed from the entrance ahead. "It seems the elevator is beyond damaged. There's no way up through here."

The malevolent presence felt rather subdued, so Wynne occupied her thoughts with other matters.

"Alright, young lady, so where to?"

The warrior, Clarice, Alistair had called her, was not so certain.

"The only other way seemed to go down."

Grinding through was not something foreign to Wynne. Going down and up corridors as dismally adorned as one could expect, strafing along steep shafts full of brimstone dust and stinking of deep-fried meat, crawling between narrow walls that donned corruption as a defiantly worn, old disease, clinging to slippery stones and wiping cobwebs from one's eyes and brow with an equally fouled hand only added to it. After a while it became obvious to everybody – they were deep below the ancient fortress.

The smell of brimstone had become ever more pungent, if possible, and, judging by the reddish flickers that threw long, withering shadows on the walls, they were quickly closing to a lava pit. Hot steam sprung from the rock every now and then without warning, and Wynne had to keep casting healing spells against the unavoidable burns and blisters to keep them in check. The warriors suffered the most; at some point, Clarice's armor became so hot that Anders had to throw a Winter's Grasp on it to keep her from cooking inside it; her skin was still angry red at the wrists and neck, where it had touched the metal.

"Dragon!" Alistair whispered sharply, having just returned from ahead.

Clarice wiped her brow with the back of her hand, leaving a long smudge of dirt instead of sweat.

"You can't possibly think to engage it," Anders chimed in.

"Have you seen any other path? A detour? Crossroad? I'm thinking that dragon must get out now and then, though. We must sneak past."

Alistair snorted.

"Past, where? None of us can sneak well enough to scout the area."

"We must try," said Wynne. The idea wasn't without merit. "If required, I can keep it still for awhile."

Clarice threw her a look as if seeing her for the first time.

"Indeed. But the passage we're looking for is large enough for the beast to cross. It won't shelter us."

Wynne tried to explain patiently, as she'd used to do at the Circle when she'd encountered a particularly thick apprentice.

"It may as well be in the ceiling. I was thinking merely to hold the beast while we come back here if anything goes wrong, or if there's no path that we can use."

It earned her a dubious look and a shrug from the girl, but it seemed that they finally had their strategy.

Wynne approached the opening carefully. It was rather high up, and the cave it peaked in was enormous, a true dragon den, with patches of lava and steam springs all around the floor and with magnificent formations throughout the ceiling, which, of course, ended with a funnel straight up. Well, it wasn't her task to assess the place; Wynne silently prepared a Paralysis glyph, which she placed carefully close to the creature's shoulder, careful not to disturb it at all. The Paralysis glyph only could do little to a high dragon; but, combined with a glyph of Repulsion, it could do lock the creature in place just enough for her to conjure a proper storm. Too bad that Anders wasn't as skilled as Morrigan with ice magic; a blizzard would have come terribly handy.

Alistair was to play the scout; Anders had to switch boots with him. He did so with a grunt, as the king's mail boots didn't fit him properly, and he joined Wynne at her vantage point.

Alistair lowered himself slowly on the cave wall. He got out of sight at some point, but nothing of a more worrying nature seemed to happen, so they kept to themselves, waiting in the quiet.

"What is that?" Andres whispered at some point, gesturing aside, towards a piece of rock that seemed conspicuously chiseled in the shape of a door.

"It looks dwarven," Wynne whispered back, "and closed."

"Shouldn't we try and get a better look?" he asked, and took off.

"Andres, wait," Clarice snapped, but Anders had already gotten to the door.

He was struggling with something that looked like a stuck lever when Alistair stepped noisily right in the middle of the room, waiving his hands and shouting without any concern for sound:

"Get back, get back!"

Then several things happened at once. Anders managed to pull the lever, which opened the stone door with a horrendous shriek; the high dragon stood up and roared, with a beat of wings; Clarice darted forward, ready to descend, and Wynne cast a Force Field that stopped her right on the edge.

"Come then," Anders called from behind.

Wynne prayed that Alistair had gotten away in time when she cast her glyph on the high dragon, which froze on the spot. Then she begun enchanting right away, knowing that conjuring a storm took time; so there was none to be lost. Clarice broke the Force Field rather quickly and was about to jump, when Alistair emerged from down under.

"Sorry, my lady." He barged at her, taking her off her feet. She grunted, scrambling back up.

"Here, here…" Anders was shouting, holding the door.

The storm finally burst from Wynne's palms and took off, in the exact moment when the creature started to stomp around, free from spell. Right before slipping through the door, Wynne got a glimpse of what exactly it was stomping upon – a huge, grey, hollering mass of darkspawn.

xxx

"That was rather embarrassing, wasn't it?" The girl was measuring Wynne and Alistair reproachfully as she was catching her breath.

"Reckless, rather, from your part" Wynne retorted.

"I was just – trying to defend _him_."

"So, what gave me up?" Alistair said.

"What gave what up?"

Obviously, the girl didn't know Alistair well enough to expect his swift bouts of anger, nor his sideways manner of making his anger known.

"You know, me, entertaining the notion that I'd like us to see who eats who, in there?"

"It's not like that, is it? You can't expect me to sit and watch you die, my _King_."

"Yes, that's very practical of you, mind, especially when said King is heroically running his boots off in the other direction, trying to _avoid_ the mayhem you are throwing yourself at… Speaking of boots, Anders…"

Alistair threw the discarded items unceremoniously towards the mage, who likewise threw the chainmail ones back.

"By all means, your Majesty. They chafe."

"You'd better learn to work with the fact that people are trying to protect you. It will happen all the time from now. Learn to expect it."

"And – and you, you'd better learn not to… - to run in the _wrong_ direction!"


End file.
